Introduction

You can reserve a product's stock by blocking the quantity in stock (Qty. in Stock) that has been marked for selling or purchasing based on prior commitments with dealers or customers. 
You reserve stock (Stock Reservation in the CRM) when a commitment for sales or purchase for a certain quantity of a product is made but not delivered. You then reserve the ordered quantity for a product (Reserved Quantity in the CRM) by not allowing it to be sold or purchased. You can reserve stock under various circumstances where customers: 

• Order products but want them delivered at a later time.
• Make a partial payment initially and complete the payment after the products are delivered.
• Require only partial delivery of the product initially and the complete quantity at a later date. 

Stock reservation is also used when you as a business cannot receive or delay the delivery of products due to business inconveniences (despite completed payments).

Vtiger CRM Stock Reservation 

The Stock Reservation module in Vtiger CRM lets you reserve products in stock from being sold or delivered. This stock is called Reserved Quantity and is saved in a Stock Reservation record. You can select multiple products and reserve their stock. 

The Stock Reservation module:

• Lets you reserve or release the ‘Reserved Quantity’ and add them back to their Qty. in Stock. 
• Lets you create a Sales Order for the same during their delivery. 
• Lets you cancel and set an expiry date for the Reserved Quantity of products. 
• Helps you avoid business hassles by rendering priorly ordered products inaccessible for sale.

Stock Status

A Stock Reservation record can have the following stock statuses:

1. New - When you create a Stock Reservation record.
2. Reserved - When you reserve a product's stock. This lets you select sub-statuses:
   1. Cancel 
   2. Ordered 
   3. Order and add Sales Order
3. Ordered - When you unreserve a product's stock.
4. Cancel - When you cancel a reserved product's stock.
5. Expired - When the record’s Reserve until date is exceeded.

Stock Reservation record

A Stock Reservation record is referred to as:

• Reserved - When you reserve Qty. in Stock for products.
• Ordered - When you unreserve Qty. in Stock for products.

So what happens when the stock in a Stock Reservation record is reserved, unreserved, canceled, or expired?  

The Qty. in Stock value for a product in the Products module increases or decreases automatically in proportion to the Reserved Quantity for a product in the Stock Reservation module. 

Benefits of Stock Reservation

• Documents every time a product is reserved or unreserved
• Facilitates convenient sales and purchase transactions
• Auto-updates products stock in the Products module.

Feature Availability

Click here for the availability of the Stock Reservation feature for different editions of Vtiger CRM.

With the Stock Reservation module, you can:

• Create a Stock Reservation record
• Reserve Qty. in Stock for products
• Unreserve Qty. in Stock for products
• Cancel reserved Qty. in Stock for products
• Set an expiry date for the Reserved Quantity of products

Let us learn how to do all of these.

Key Terminology 

Installing the Stock Reservation module 

The Stock Reservation module is not available by default in Vtiger CRM. Admin users need to first install the Vtiger Inventory extension. 

Follow these steps to install the Vtiger Inventory extension: 

1. Log into your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu.
3. Click Add-ons on the bottom left corner of the screen.

Or

3. Click Settings.
4. Look for Extensions.
5. Click Extension Store.
6. Look for the Vtiger Inventory extension.
7. Click Install.
8. Click Yes to confirm the installation.

You have now successfully installed the Vtiger Inventory extension.

Accessing the Stock Reservation Module

Once the Vtiger Inventory extension is installed successfully, follow these steps to access the Stock Reservation module:

1. Login to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu.
3. Click Inventory.
4. Look for Others.
5. Select Stock Reservation.

Enabling the Stock Reservation Module

If the Vtiger Inventory extension is already installed and the Stock Reservation module is unavailable, you must enable it. 

Follow these steps to enable the Stock Reservation module:

1. Login to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu.
3. Click Settings.
4. Look for Module Management.
5. Select Modules.
6. Browse Stock Reservation.
7. Enable Stock Reservation. The system displays the following confirmation message: Stock Reservation module enabled.

You have now successfully enabled the Stock Reservation module and can access it.

Once the Stock Reservation module is enabled, you can create a Stock Reservation record via:

• The Stock Reservation module
• The Summary View of the following modules:

• Contacts
• Organizations
• Quotes
• Sales Orders

Creating Stock Reservations

In this section, let us learn how to create Stock Reservations for products via various CRM modules. 

• You can create a Stock Reservation record from the Summary View of the following modules:
  • Contacts
  • Organizations
  • Quotes
  • Sales Orders
• Once you create a Stock Reservation record from these modules, the Stock Reservation’s details in the respective module are auto-filled.

Follow these steps to create a Stock Reservation record from the above modules:

Note: In this instance, we have considered the Contacts module. You can create a Stock Reservation in other modules mentioned above.

1. Login to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu.
3. Click Essentials.
4. Look for Lead & Contact Management.
5. Select Contacts.
6. Select a Contact record for which you want to create a Stock Reservation record. It will take you to the Summary View of the Contact record.
7. Click More (3 dots) on the top right corner of the screen.
8. With a scroll down, under Add or Link, select Stock Reservation. This will take you to the Creating Stock Reservation window.

You can now create a Stock Reservation record for a product linked to the Contact, as illustrated in the Creating Stock Reservations section.

With this, a Stock Reservation record for a product is created and saved in the Stock Reservation module.

Creating Stock Reservations

In this section let us learn how to create Stock Reservations for products via the Stock Reservation module.

Follow these steps to create a Stock Reservation for a product via the Stock Reservations module:

1. Enter or select the following information under the Basic Information section:
   1. Contact Name - Select the name of the contact who has requested the stock reservation.
   2. Organization name - Select the name of the organization that has requested the stock reservation.
   3. Status - Select a status such as:
      1. New - If you want to create a Stock Reservation record for a product.

Note: Selecting Order and adding Sales Order will create a Sales Order with auto-filled Stock Reservation record’s details.

3. Ordered - If you want to unreserve a product's stock.
4. Cancel - If you want to cancel a reserved product's stock.
5. Expired - If the Stock Reservation record has exceeded the Reserve until date, its status is auto-selected as Expired.

3. Reserve until - Select a date when you want to reserve a product's stock.

 

1. Item name - Select a product whose stock you want to reserve.

Note: You can select multiple products and reserve their stock. 

2. Reserved Quantity - Enter the quantity of a product's stock you want to reserve.

3.  Enter a description for the Stock Reservation in the Description textbox .
4. Click Save.

You have now successfully created a Stock Reservation record for a product via the Stock Reservations module.

Let us now learn about automated Qty. in Stock updations for products in the Products module.

Automated Stock Updations for Products

Once you create a Stock Reservation record for a product in the Stock Reservation module, the Qty. in Stock for a product in the Products module is automatically updated as follows: