Why is the exported stock different from my own stock?

Stock reservation in ChannelEngine

ChannelEngine reserves stock in order to prevent the same item quantity from being sold on multiple marketplaces. If a product has a stock of 5 remaining and someone orders 2 of this product on a channel, we will deduct these 2 from the available stock and export '3' to all connected channels where this product is currently being exported to.

In the following image the stock in ChannelEngine is 310, but as there are 61 items on open orders, the stock number is set to 249.

We will continue to reserve this stock until the status of the order containing this product is changed to  Shipped, Closed or Cancelled (and a closed date is set in our database).

In case of New or In progress the order is not completed yet and the stock remains reserved. This is why it is very important to also handle shipments via ChannelEngine, otherwise, we will not automatically close orders eventually leading to 'out of stocks' when all our known stock is sold and reserved.

Shipments handled outside ChannelEngine

If you do not handle the order, shipment/cancellation, return flow via ChannelEngine and only use ChannelEngine for product offers and data, you can use the option to automatically close orders.

Warning: Please note that enabling this option, can have severe consequences as these orders will never be pushed to your own system. 

To automatically close orders:

1. Go to Settings, Settings, Advanced Settings.
2. Navigate to Set orders to closed after import and switch the toggle to On. After saving, all new orders will be set to closed right away and no stock reservation will be applied.
   
   You can recognize if this option is enabled by checking orders: the status will be CLOSED (instead of the regular SHIPPED) and there will an order comment placed stating "This order is auto closed by general settings".
   

Disable stock reservation

One of the main features that make ChannelEngine work, is the automatic stock reservation. Without us reserving stock and fully relying upon up to date stock coming from the client system, it will still add an extra latency to the whole stock update on marketplaces. This is especially relevant if you sell on a lot of marketplaces or have low stock numbers for items.

To illustrate with an example (the frequency on tasks may vary):

With CE stock reservation

1. [15:04] Order is placed at marketplace 2.
2. [15:06] Order is retrieved by CE, order line is now 'open'.
3. [15:10] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 1.
4. [15:12] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 3.
5. [15:13] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 2.

Without CE stock reservation

1. [15:04] Order is placed at marketplace 2.
2. [15:06] Order is retrieved by CE, order line is now 'open'.
3. [15:11] Order is fetched and acknowledged by merchant system.
4. [15:16] Stock update for item is received by ChannelEngine.
5. [15:25] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 1.
6. [15:27] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 3.
7. [15:28] Offer (and so stock) is updated at marketplace 2.

Because tasks like exporting offers are scheduled with a specific frequency, even if you update stock frequent, chances are it will miss the first offer export. This means that the stock update for all marketplaces will be ~15 minutes later. Especially in busy periods and when offering your product on a lot of marketplaces, this could cause unnecessary out-of-stock cancellations.

If you are absolutely certain that your stock updates towards ChannelEngine are fast enough and you have stock filters in place, it is possible to disable ChanneEngine's stock reservation. This is not a feature to enable lightly, as there will always be an extra latency added by exporting the order to your system and receiving a stock update in return. Also, see this article for a projected time sheet between enabling and disabling stock reservation.

To disable stock reservation:

1. Go to Settings, Settings, Advanced Settings.
2. Navigate to Turn off stock reservation for open orders, and switch the toggle to On. After saving, no stock reservation will be applied and whatever stock you submit to ChannelEngine is what is exported towards marketplaces.