Background
In WooCommerce, the Stock quantity for a product displays the inventory available for sale. Stock in WooCommerce is decreased immediately when a Sales order (SO) comes in, i.e. when a SO is still open.
When you have turned ON the stock sync from Katana to WooCommerce, then the available stock in WooCommerce will be affected by all your open Sales orders in Katana, even if those orders have come from some other channel (e.g. created in Katana manually). This is because WooCommerce stock quantities are overwritten with Katana stock levels.
Problem
In certain cases, you might wish to prevent certain open Sales orders from affecting your available stock in WooCommerce.
For example, when you are doing both direct business-to-consumer sales and wholesale business-to-business sales, you might wish to exclude the commitments to open wholesale orders from the available stock calculation in WooCommerce. Especially when you are selling to consumers from stock, but making to order for wholesale.
Solution
When connecting your WooCommerce store to Katana or reconfiguring the settings, you can choose to enable or disable the following option: Commitments from orders created in Katana reduce the availability of stock in WooCommerce.
When switched ON, all your Katana Sales orders will affect the available stock levels in WooCommerce. You can only switch it ON when the stock sync from Katana to WooCommerce is switched ON.
When switched OFF, only Sales orders synced from WooCommerce to Katana will affect the available stock levels in WooCommerce. All product commitments to other open Sales orders in Katana are excluded (e.g. orders created manually in Katana).
For example, if you wish to exclude the commitments to open wholesale orders (that you create in Katana manually) from the available stock calculation in WooCommerce, opt-out from the option above.
Be aware that when completing the order from another channel in Katana (e.g. the wholesale order), the In stock quantity in Katana is reduced and this reduction in stock will be synced to WooCommerce. Make sure that you complete the manufacturing of products required by the order before marking it Delivered to avoid reducing available stock in WooCommerce.
Note: When you have connected multiple WooCommerce stores to one Katana account, Sales orders from all WooCommerce stores will affect the synced stock level. Only commitments to open orders from other sales channels (e.g. created manually in Katana) are not taken into account if you have opt out from the option above.
Example
You are selling directly to consumers on WooCommerce and also do wholesale to business customers. WooCommerce customer orders are automatically synced to Katana, wholesale orders are entered manually into Katana.
Via WooCommerce, you are mainly selling from existing stock, and your store will show "Out of stock" for items without any stock.
Wholesale orders are made to order.
You wish to sync stock levels from Katana to WooCommerce but prevent open wholesale orders from affecting the stock availability on WooCommerce. In this case, opt-out from "Commitments from orders created in Katana reduce the availability of stock in WooCommerce" in the integration settings.
Example:
You have switched ON the stock sync from Katana to WooCommerce and opt-out from "Commitments from orders created in Katana reduce the availability of stock in WooCommerce."
You have 10 pcs of Product A in stock in WooCommerce.
A Sales Order is received in WooCommerce for 3 pcs of Product A. The order is not yet fulfilled and is in "Processing" status. The stock in WooCommerce is immediately reduced to 7 pcs.
In Katana, the "In stock" quantity for Product A is 10 pcs and the "Committed" quantity is 3 pcs.
You receive a wholesale order for 30 pcs of Product A and insert it into Katana (manually).
The "In stock" quantity in Katana is still 10 pcs but the "Committed" quantity is increased to a total of 33 pcs.
As you have chosen not to count commitments from open orders created in Katana in the availability of stock in WooCommerce, the stock quantity in WooCommerce is still 7 pcs and Product A is available for sale.
You complete the manufacturing of 30 pcs of Product A for the wholesale order and the "In stock" quantity is increased to 37 pcs. This is reflected in WooCommerce until you ship out the wholesale order.
You deliver the wholesale order. Your "In stock" quantity in Katana is reduced back to 10 pcs, "Committed" to 3 pcs and stock in WooCommerce to 7 pcs.
Product A was available for sale on WooCommerce the entire time, although you received a large wholesale order that increased the commitments for Product A in Katana.