Reserving Materials for Production

Reserving Materials for Production

Reserving materials flags the quantities needed for a production order as unavailable for other purposes. The stock is still physically in your storage, but CrafterBy tracks it as committed — so if you check available stock for another order or purchase decision, it shows the correct figure.

What Reservation Does (and Does Not Do)

Reservation does:

• Reduce the available quantity of each material by the reserved amount
• Flag those quantities as linked to this production order
• Prevent the same stock being double-counted across multiple planned orders

Reservation does not:

• Reduce your total stock on hand — that only happens when you log consumption
• Lock the order — you can still edit or cancel after reservation
• Prevent you from adjusting reserved quantities if plans change

How to Reserve Materials

1. Open the production order (status: Planned).
2. Click Reserve Materials.
3. CrafterBy checks current stock levels against the required quantities for each material line.
4. Each line shows: Required, Available, and Reserved columns.
5. If all materials are available, click Confirm Reservation. The order status moves to Materials Reserved.

Handling Insufficient Stock

If any material line shows insufficient available stock, a warning appears on that line. You have three options:

• Create a Purchase Order — order more of the material before proceeding. Once the purchase is received, return and complete the reservation.
• Reserve what is available — you can partially reserve and proceed, but note which lines are short. You will need to source the shortfall before starting production.
• Reduce the production quantity — if you cannot source more stock in time, edit the production order to produce fewer units with the materials you have.

Viewing Reserved Stock Across All Orders

To see a consolidated view of all materials currently reserved across all active production orders:

1. Go to Stock Management > Inventory.
2. The Reserved column shows total reserved quantities per material.
3. The Available column shows on-hand minus reserved — what you can actually use for new orders.

This cross-order view is particularly useful when you are planning multiple production runs concurrently and need to check whether you have enough of a shared material (for example, a fragrance oil used in both a candle and a wax melt product).

Releasing a Reservation

If you cancel or postpone a production order, its reserved materials are automatically released back to available stock. You can also manually release a reservation from the production order without cancelling the order — useful if plans change and you want to re-evaluate stock before reconfirming.