Background
In Shopify, the Stock quantity for a product displays the inventory available for sale. Stock in Shopify 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 Shopify, then the available stock in Shopify will be affected by all your Sales orders in Katana, even if those orders have come from some other channel (e.g. created in Katana manually). This is because Shopify 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 Shopify.
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 Shopify. Especially when you are selling to consumers from stock, but making to order for wholesale.
Solution
When connecting your Shopify 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 Shopify.
When switched ON, all your Katana Sales orders will affect the available stock levels in Shopify. You can only switch it ON when the stock sync from Katana to Shopify is switched ON.
When switched OFF, only Sales orders synced from Shopify to Katana will affect the available stock levels in Shopify. 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 Shopify, 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 Shopify. Make sure that you complete the manufacturing of products required by the other order before marking it Delivered to avoid reducing available stock in Shopify.
Note: When you have connected multiple Shopify stores to one Katana account, Sales orders from all Shopify 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 Shopify and also do wholesale to business customers. Shopify customer orders are automatically synced to Katana, wholesale orders are entered manually into Katana.
Via Shopify, 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 Shopify but prevent open wholesale orders from affecting the stock availability on Shopify. In this case, opt-out from Commitments from orders created in Katana reduce the availability of stock in Shopify in the integration settings.
Example:
You have switched ON the stock sync from Katana to Shopify and opt-out from Commitments from orders created in Katana reduce the availability of stock in Shopify.
You have 10 pcs of Product A in stock in Shopify.
A SO is received in Shopify for 3 pcs of Product A. The order is still in Unfulfilled status. The stock in Shopify 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 Shopify, the stock quantity in Shopify 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 Shopify until you ship out the wholesale order, but you most probably ship the wholesale order shortly after finishing the production.
You deliver the wholesale order. Your In stock quantity in Katana is reduced back to 10 pcs, Committed to 3 pcs and stock in Shopify to 7 pcs.
Product A was available for sale on Shopify the entire time, although you received a large wholesale order that increased the commitments for Product A in Katana.