Inventory debt

Inventory debt is how SKU.io handles units that leave before the stock ledger has anything to deduct for them — the situation other systems call negative inventory, negative stock, or overselling. Instead of refusing the shipment or losing the gap, it writes down what you owe — a claim for those units, against one product at one warehouse, carried at an estimated cost — and repays it automatically from the next stock that arrives. The goods go out; the books catch up; the month-end close asks somebody to sign for whatever is still outstanding.

It applies in two situations. Somebody ships an order short on purpose, because the goods are on the shelf and the count is behind, by clicking Ship Anyway. Or a sales channel reports an order as shipped that SKU.io could not match to stock, in which case there was never a decision to make and the shipment is recorded whatever your policy says.

What the Fulfillment Debt report gives you

Everything owed lives on one page, Inventory → Fulfillment Debt:

• Four counts across the top — Debt Lines (split into claims and channel lines), Total Debt Qty, Affected Products and Affected Warehouses.
• Three money tiles — Inventory Debt Clearing, the balance sitting in the clearing account as posted and relieved; Oldest claim, its age and how many claims have passed 30 days; and Settled this month, the units repaid and the variance they sent to cost of sale.
• The Inventory Debt Claims table — one row per claim, with its Order, SKU / Product, Warehouse, Source, Status, Outstanding quantity, Est. unit cost, Clearing amount, Age and Reason, filtered to Outstanding by default, with Settle from Stock and Create Catch-Up Stock Take for the claims you tick.
• Shipped, Not on the Ledger — the channel shipments a claim cannot cover, each with a Why not on the ledger reason.

The value is that the number on this page is the number finance has to agree with. A claim is a real movement in the product's history, its estimate is a real posting to the clearing account, and the close checklist reads the same balance. Nothing about debt lives only in someone's head.

Where to find it

1. Go to Inventory.
2. Click Fulfillment Debt, near the bottom of the Inventory menu.

The same page is listed as Fulfillment Debt Report in the reports rail on the left. A few other routes lead here:

• From a product. Where a sales channel has shipped a product SKU.io could not record — the Shipped, Not on the Ledger cases — the product's Movements tab shows a banner with a Fulfillment Debt Report button that opens the report filtered to that product. Claims do not raise that banner; for those, open the report itself.
• From the close. The Inventory debt settled row on Accounting → Close opens the report scoped to the month.
• From the dashboard, an alert, or the orders list. See find the orders that owe stock.

Shipping below zero is off until you turn it on: the policy in Settings → Inventory ships as Block. Channel-reported shipments are recorded regardless.

Start here

The set reads in the order you meet debt: learn what it is, set it up, ship into it, find what owes, watch it, settle it, and close the month over whatever is left.

• Learn — What inventory debt is, and when you want it instead of a backorder. Everything else assumes this page.
• Set up — Turn on shipping below zero.
• Ship — Ship an order when the stock isn't there.
• Find — Find the orders that owe stock. Start here if the Inventory Debt Incurred alert is what brought you.
• Watch — Work through your outstanding debt.
• Settle — Settle a claim from stock you've received.
• Close — Close a month with debt outstanding.

If you are in finance, start here

Debt usually reaches finance the other way round: as an unfamiliar balance in a liability account, on a balance sheet you are about to freeze. Three pages cover it end to end.

1. What posts to your ledger — the entry when the goods leave, the entry when the stock arrives, and what the Inventory Debt Clearing account holds in between.
2. Debt on your reports — valuation, provisional profit, and the steps for tying the clearing account out to your balance sheet.
3. Close a month with debt outstanding — the Inventory debt settled check, and what to do about a month you cannot clear.

How-to guides

• Turn on shipping below zero — the policy, the clearing account it needs, the cost chain, and warehouse and product overrides.
• Ship an order when the stock isn't there — the backordered panel, Ship Anyway, and the acknowledgement.
• Work through your outstanding debt — the tiles, the claims ledger, the filters, and the Shipped, Not on the Ledger section.
• Settle a claim from stock you've received — when to settle by hand, the preview, and the variance.
• Clear debt no delivery will repay — for debt no receipt will ever repay.
• Close a month with debt outstanding — what the close check reports, and settling versus overriding.
• Undo a shipment that went out on debt — void or delete, where the units go, and why a repaid claim refuses.
• Find the orders that owe stock — the Inventory Debt Incurred alert, the dashboard tiles, and the Sales Orders filter.

Concepts

• What inventory debt is, and when you want it instead of a backorder — the core distinction, and what is not debt.
• What a debt shipment costs — the estimate chain, and why the cost changes when stock lands.
• What posts to your ledger — the ship entry, the settlement entry, the variance and the clearing account.
• How debt repays itself — which receipts settle a claim, oldest first, and what never does.
• Which policy applies to a shipment — company, warehouse and product, and why a product can only tighten.
• Debt on your reports — valuation, provisional profit, and availability that reads negative.
• Debt the sales channel created — a channel shipment is a fact; its two outcomes, and which of them mark the order Out of Sync.

Reference

• Claim statuses and sources — every status and source, and the four Why not on the ledger reasons.
• Fulfillment Debt report reference — every column, filter and bulk action on both sections.
• Inventory debt settings — every setting, its options, its default and what it changes.
• When a shipment is refused — the refusals you can hit, verbatim, and what to do about each.

Related

• Inventory and the close — what outstanding debt means for a month you are about to sign off.
• Close over outstanding inventory debt — the close side of the Inventory debt settled check.