Safety nets

A supplier order commits real money: a stock error can cause a stock-out or an order that is too large. Inklura therefore wraps the calculation and the sending in several protections. This page describes them from the merchant's side: what each one prevents, what you see when it triggers, and what to check when a number surprises you.

The safeguards at a glance

Review before sending

Every morning, supplier emails are prepared and placed in a review queue; nothing leaves at that point. You review, adjust, then send (see Supplier ordering pipeline).

At send time, the email is rebuilt from the current lines. If those lines changed since preparation, for example because a customer order came in meanwhile, the send is refused with a "re-prepare, then resend" message ("Re-préparez puis renvoyez" in the back office). Re-prepare the email, review the new quantities, then send again. What you reviewed is always what leaves.

Pre-send check

The pre-send check verifies, product by product, that the order covers the customer demand in its window: the customer deliveries that depend on this send, up to those that belong to the next one. It redoes the calculation on its own, from customer orders, stock and other open orders, without reusing the ordering engine's calculation. If the two disagree, you see it before sending.

You find it, under "Pre-send check" ("Contrôle avant envoi"), in an order's send dialog and in the per-supplier order composer. The check gives an overall verdict: Covered ("Couvert"), To check ("À vérifier", at least one amber signal) or To fix ("À corriger", at least one shortfall). Each product then carries an indicator (the back office shows the French labels):

The "Copy the check for analysis" button ("Copier le contrôle pour analyse") copies the check's details, useful when talking to support.

Automatic sending

By default, every order waits for you to send it. You can turn on automatic sending supplier by supplier, on the supplier record (see Settings). It is controlled:

• only suppliers with both "Automatic sending" ("Envoi automatique") and "Sending allowed" ("Envoi autorisé") turned on are affected;
• only an order still in draft, with no reception recorded, can leave;
• the order leaves on the first automatic-sending pass after its slot time (one pass every quarter of an hour), never earlier;
• the order is held, and stays a draft, if the pre-send check reports a shortfall (verdict "À corriger"), if customer orders attached to it must be delivered before its expected reception, if the email quantities do not match the order's lines, or if the supplier record has no destination address;
• if the lines or the slot changed since the email was prepared, automatic sending re-prepares the email once and tries again; if the preview changes again, or if it had been edited by hand (subject or recipients), the order is held;
• if the slot is more than one hour past, the order is no longer caught up: it stays a draft and is sent by hand;
• a supplier attached to a grouped-order supplier never sends on its own: the grouped-order supplier sends for all of them.

When a pass holds one or more orders, or fails on one of them, you receive a single email "Envoi automatique : N bon(s) non envoyé(s)" (N order(s) not sent), with the supplier, slot and reason for each. It goes to the supplier-order notification address set for your site, or else to your company's contact email. No email is sent when everything left. An order that was not caught up (slot more than an hour past) or an attached supplier does not appear in that email.

To release a held order: open the slot from E-commerce › Fournisseurs › Commandes, expand "Contrôle avant envoi", fix the issue, then click "Envoyer au fournisseur".

Cancelled orders

A cancelled supplier order is never sent, whether by hand or by automatic sending, even if its email had already been prepared.

Past slots and late demand

The engine never creates a draft on a slot that has already passed, and never puts a customer order already covered by a send that went out back into the next send.

A customer order that arrives too late for any remaining slot to deliver on time is excluded from upcoming supplier emails: goods arriving after the delivery would be no help, so you handle it directly. It appears on no order; the pre-send check of the next order flags it with the "before reception" indicator.

The "uncovered supplier demand" panel of the My stock page flags a different case: lines left on a draft while an order for the same slot has already gone out. That draft will not leave on its own; you can dismiss it from the panel.

Phantom stock

Recorded stock can be far higher than reality, for example when a store displays a large stock to keep selling. Such stock would reduce supplier orders and cause stock-outs.

The Stock gaps screen (« Écarts de stock », /manage/ecommerce/vendors/orders/phantom-stock) flags these cases: a product in stock is a suspect when that stock covers more than eight weeks of outflows (the average over the last eight weeks), or when it had no outflow over that period. The screen shows each product's weekly consumption, coverage in weeks and retained stock. It is a review signal: on its own it does not change the quantities ordered. Correct wrong stock (a count, or a correction on the screen), or confirm real stock. A product already validated or corrected by hand is no longer flagged.

The default view ("Suspects uniquement", suspects only) also lists products whose stock is negative: the real shelf quantity is unknown, so count them again.

• To confirm real stock, use the Trust this stock button ("Faire confiance à ce stock") on the Stock gaps screen, Confirm stock ("Confirmer le stock") in the product list and product record, or Validate this stock ("Valider ce stock") on the My stock page. The product becomes "Validated stock" ("Stock validé", or "Stock confirmé" in the product list and product record) and leaves the suspect list. You can withdraw that confirmation at any time.
• A manual stock correction (a count, a correction on the Stock gaps screen, a manual movement) counts as validation: the product also becomes "Validated stock".

Rules applied to retained stock:

• a product without stock tracking has a retained stock of 0;
• a made-to-order supplier orders the exact demand without subtracting stock, except for products whose stock was validated;
• negative stock counts as 0 when computing orders.

Forgotten reception

The normal action is to confirm each supplier reception and each customer delivery in the back office when it happens. If you forget, the platform automatically validates receptions and deliveries whose planned date is at least 12 hours in the past (default delay). That delay avoids validating what has not happened yet; if you deliver early, simply confirm by hand.

The Stock status page (/manage/ecommerce/inventory/stock-ledger) shows a health indicator for this automatic validation:

The indicator also shows the "last activity", the date of the last real validation. A quiet day produces no validation: an old date there does not signal a failure.

Daily checks

Every day, the platform checks the consistency of stock and supplier drafts, and the morning reconciliation brings supplier orders back in line with demand. Any anomaly found is handled by the Inklura team.

On your side, the Stock status page offers a "Divergence ledger" filter and a "Reconcile" button ("Réconcilier") that lists products whose movement history no longer matches the stock on the product record, then aligns the history on that stock. A read-only preview is always shown before anything is applied, and you can fix only a selection.

When a number surprises you

A product's stock looks wrong

1. Is stock tracking turned on for the product? Without it, stock is not tracked and counts as 0 in supplier orders.
2. Open the product's timeline on the Stock status page. The movement at fault is almost always visible: a delivery with no matching reception, an unexpected adjustment, a duplicate reception.
3. Negative stock usually means a customer delivery was validated before the supplier reception that covers it. Enter the reception: it makes up the difference.
4. If stock no longer matches its history, use the reconciliation on the Stock status page. It takes the stock on the product record as the reference: check that value first.
5. If the doubt is about physical stock, run a stock count (/manage/ecommerce/inventory/counts, see Back-office surfaces).

A supplier order is missing lines

flowchart TD
  A["Line missing from a supplier order"] --> B{"Stock tracking<br/>on for the product?"}
  B -->|no| C{"Customer demand<br/>in the window?"}
  C -->|no| C2["No line:<br/>nothing to order"]
  C -->|yes| H
  B -->|yes| D{"Retained stock<br/>≥ demand?"}
  D -->|yes| E{"Is that stock real?"}
  E -->|yes| F["Demand covered:<br/>a line at 0 is normal"]
  E -->|no| G["Correct the stock<br/>or run a count"]
  D -->|no| H{"Child of a<br/>generic product?"}
  H -->|yes| I["The demand is on<br/>the generic's line"]
  H -->|no| J["Check the default supplier<br/>and the customer delivery date"]

Things to check:

• Product without stock tracking: it enters the calculation as soon as it has customer demand in the window, at the next pass (within 30 minutes). Its stock counts as 0.
• Retained stock: if retained stock covers the demand, the line exists at quantity 0 on the draft, but is left out of the email. That is intended. If the stock is wrong, correct it or run a count.
• Generic product: a product linked to a generic never appears on its own for the supplier; its demand is on the generic's line.
• Default supplier: a product is only ordered from its default supplier.
• Late demand: if the customer order arrived after the last useful slot, see "Past slots and late demand" above.

An order was not sent automatically

• Check on the supplier record that both "Automatic sending" and "Sending allowed" are on and that a destination address is set.
• Check that the supplier is not attached to a grouped-order supplier: that supplier sends instead.
• Read the "N bon(s) non envoyé(s)" email, if you received one: it gives the reason (shortfall reported by the pre-send check, customer orders due before the reception, email quantities that differ from the order, no destination address).
• If the slot is more than an hour past, send the order by hand from the review queue.

See also

• Overview
• The stock ledger: recorded stock, negative stock
• Write paths: how each movement is recorded
• Supplier ordering pipeline: slots, quantities, review
• Daily timeline: what happens at what time
• Back-office surfaces: Stock status, counts, Stock gaps
• Settings: supplier and product record options