In some cases, you may need to sell the products to your customers before they arrive at your warehouse, or even before you order them from your customers. In Hike, you can easily manage the pre-sales with the backorder feature. This article will explain the following scenarios in details.
- How to create a backorder
- How to create a purchase order from backorders
- How to get the summary of linked backorders in a purchase order
- How to complete a backorder
How to create a backorder
Hike allows you to create a backorder when the product is out of stock in the outlet you are processing the sales. Before creating a backorder, please make sure the following settings are correct.
- Your user to process backorders has the permission to do it. If you are not the admin user, please ask the admin user to check it. For further explanation on how to change user permissions, please refer to Adding, Editing & Switching User IDs & Permissions in Hike.
- You don't allow to sell out-of-stock products on either the store or the product level. The setting on the store level can be reviewed under Store setup >>> General >>> General Rules, while that on the product one can be reviewed on the product editing page of each product.
When you add an out-of-stock product into the sale cart, the system will ask you to confirm whether to create a backorder for it. The product will be added into the cart after clicking Yes.
You can continue clicking on the same product to add more into the backorder, or click on the line item in the cart to change the quantity. Please note, the quantity will always be shown as 0 in the cart, and the quantity in the backorder will be shown as a note.
You can add both the in-stock and out-of-stock products in the same cart. However, please note, if so, 2 invoices will be created automatically in the sales history, like shown in the image below, one for the in-stock products, and one for the out-of-stock ones.
After finishing adding the products into the sales cart, please add a customer to the sale and click on the CREATE BACKORDER or PAY button to move on to the check-out page. You can ask your customer to deposit a certain amount lower than the backorder total if necessary, and record it by inputting the amount in the textbox of backorder deposit.
The order fulfilment status will be shown as a backorder.
How to create a purchase order from backorders
In Hike, you are provided with the flexibility to do it on the order or the supplier level. Please make sure the product has been associated with at least a supplier before creating the purchase order.
Create a purchase order on the order level
Find the backorder in the sales history, and click on the Create PO link.
A window will slide out and click on the CREATE DRAFT PO button on it.
A new window will slide out to let you choose between creating a new purchase order or adding it to an existing one. If the supplier associated with the products have an open purchase order, it will be listed in the dropdown list.
Create a purchase order on the supplier level
Navigate to Inventory >>> Purchases, and click on ADD NEW to add a purchase order, or any open purchase order in the list.
Tick the option Auto-fill backordered items after you have set up the supplier and the outlet.
Then the backordered items will be added to the purchase order based on the supplier and outlet you chose. For further explanation on how to add purchase orders, please refer to
What is a Stock Purchase Order?How to get the summary of linked backorders in a purchase order
You may need to know which backorders are related when what you ordered from your supplier has arrived. Also, knowing which products are reserved for the backorders and which customers to notify will boost efficiency.
First, navigate to Inventory >>> Purchases to find the purchase order. You can tick "Only customer backorders linked POs" to filter the list.
Then, click into the purchase order, and you will find the sales reference numbers of the backorders in the notes of the purchase order.
To check the details of the linked backorders, please click on LINKED BACKORDERS at the bottom of the page.
A window will slide out, which includes the customers to inform and which products are ordered for the backorders. You can also print it out if necessary.
How to complete a backorder
After the products have arrived at the outlet, you can then complete the backorder you created.
Find the order in the sales history, and click on Pay to reopen the backorder.
Then, you can complete the payment on the following pages. Hike will ask you to confirm whether the order has been fulfilled. You can choose to fulfil the order now, or later in the sales history.
Back-order management
We have recently introduced a dedicated section for Back-order sales in response to increased demand from our existing customers. This new section is designed to help us manage back-orders more efficiently, providing an overview of back-orders along with their status.
A back-order sale occurs when an item is out of stock and is placed on order with our suppliers. Customers will be able to collect their items once the product is back in stock.
When you create a back-order, you will have the option to check details about the product quantity or to create a purchase order (PO). Open the back-order sale from the sales history and click on 'Create PO' to find the below screen:
In the above section, you will find information such as the product name in the back-order, the quantity of the product, the received stock (if any), the supplier name, and an option to create a PO for the product.
You can click on 'Create Draft PO' to create the purchase order (PO) and when you will receive the stock, you will see the update in the Received column:
This feature aims to provide more information and clarity within our back-order management system.
Ability to edit the back-order sale to apply partial payments or advance deposits
Furthermore, you can also edit and re-open a back-order sale that is created in Hike. To edit the back-order sale, open the sale from the sales history and you will see an Edit button. Click on edit to add more items to the back-order sale or to record partial advance deposits or payments.
After clicking on Edit, the sale will open into the cart where you can hit the Pay button to charge the partial payment or advance deposits.