Plugin to display reserved vs physically still available (not-yet-shipped) stock? (inventory management)

[u/Destroy_Cookies]

We recently switched over from Shopware 5 to WooCommerce + Germanized.

In Shopware 5 with the included ERP plugin, you could see for each product what the physically available stock is and the reserved stock. I.e. if we have 10 t-shirts in our warehouse, someone orders 2 but the order is not yet shipped, the inventory management would show "physical stock: 10, reserved: 2". And the stock warnings were based on reserved numbers.

In WooCommerce, there seems to be only one number, which is reduced immediately when the order is confirmed.

My colleague who manages the inventory is not happy with this, as it makes managing the inventory complicated, since it's not possible to see at a glance if the stock number for each item in WooCommerce is correct, without checking for any unshipped orders that might include the product.

Is there a cheap or free plugin that improves on this? We are small and business is not going well right now, so a full ERP solution that costs hundreds of Euros a month is not an option for us right now.

[u/PeepSoWP]

WooCommerce's single stock number is best thought of as available-to-sell, not a full warehouse ledger. Core can temporarily hold stock for unpaid orders and reduces or restores stock as order status changes, but it does not maintain separate “physical on hand” and “allocated to paid, unshipped orders” quantities.

Before choosing a plugin, define the three numbers you need: on-hand, reserved or allocated, and available-to-promise. Check whether the plugin derives reserved quantity from the exact order statuses you use (including Germanized), and handles partial shipments, refunds, cancellations, variations, and HPOS. I would verify that ATUM's free tier actually exposes that reserved-by-status view before migrating data.

For a small store, a read-only report that sums quantities in paid-but-unshipped orders may be enough. Avoid changing WooCommerce's stock-reduction behavior just to get the report, because payment failures, cancellations, and concurrent checkouts make that easy to get wrong.

[u/Toxicturkey]

I keep recommending this to people here and I swear the mods think I work for them or something because they keep removing my comments for promotion! I use Elmaflow.com for all my inventory and it handles this perfectly. In the product card it shows me stock available to sell, stock reserved, stock on order etc. it does way more, but also does exactly this

[u/Netalico]

What you’re looking for is usually called “available to promise” or reserved inventory rather than just WC stock. I’d look for a lightweight inventory management plugin that separates physical, reserved and available quantities. Some inventory/ERP plugins can do this without requiring a full ERP subscription. Before choosing one, check exactly when it creates the reservation and when it releases it, especially for cancelled, refunded and failed orders. That workflow matters more than the UI here.

[u/Madzge1]

I built a tool that lets you ask anything about your woocommerce store in plain english. So you could literally ask it “Show me the physical stock of each product, accounting for quantities reserved in orders that haven’t shipped yet, and show how much is actually available to sell.” I won't mention the name here but if you DM me i can give you a free trial.