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Undo a shipment that went out on debt

A shipment recorded below zero is undone the same way as any other: void it from the order. What differs is what happens to the units. Ordinary units go back to being allocated against the stock they came from; units that shipped on debt came from nothing, so SKU.io re-asks the question — is there stock for this line now? — and the answer is either allocated or backordered, never debt again.

One rule matters before you start: a shipment whose debt has already been repaid, even in part, cannot be voided. Check that first.

Before you begin​

  • You need permission to fulfil sales orders. The Void shipment action is in the shipment's menu on the order's Fulfillment tab.

  • Only void a shipment that was mis-recorded — the wrong order, the wrong quantity, goods that never actually left. Voiding a shipment the customer really received puts stock back on your books that is not on your shelf.

  • Find the claim first. Go to Inventory → Fulfillment Debt, set the Status filter to All statuses, and find the claim whose Order column links to the order. Its Outstanding and Status columns together tell you whether the void will be allowed:

    • Outstanding 3 / 3 — nothing repaid yet. The void goes through.
    • Outstanding 2 / 4 — partly repaid. The void is refused.
    • Status Settled — fully repaid. The void is refused.

  • Know which shipment carried the debt, and how much of it. The shipment card on the order's Fulfillment tab looks the same whether or not the units were on hand; the order's Movements tab is where the split shows. A shipment of eight units with six on the shelf writes two rows for the same shipment: one with Status active, a quantity of -6, a unit cost and a Layer; and one with Status debt, a quantity of -2, an estimated unit cost, and nothing in the Layer column. The empty layer is what marks the second row out — those units came off no stock at all. That second row is the debt.

    The order's Movements tab showing an active row of minus six units with a FIFO layer and a debt row of minus two units with no layer

Steps​

  1. Open the sales order and click the Fulfillment tab. The shipment appears as a card under the Fulfilled filter, showing its fulfillment order, its shipment number, the warehouse it shipped from and the ship date, with the items and quantities beneath.

    A fulfilled shipment card on the order's Fulfillment tab, with its menu button at the right

  2. Click the ⋮ menu at the right of the shipment card and choose Void shipment.

    The shipment card's menu open, with Void shipment as the last item

  3. Read the Void Shipment dialog. It explains what voiding does — it reverses the shipment's inventory movements, reopens its fulfillment order so it can be fulfilled again, cancels the carrier order where the provider still allows it, and keeps the shipment record for history rather than deleting it.

    The Void Shipment dialog with its explanation, an optional reason field, and Keep shipment and Void shipment buttons

  4. Optionally type why in Reason (optional). It is kept with the voided shipment.

  5. Click Void shipment. To back out, click Keep shipment instead. On success the message reads Shipment voided — its fulfillment order is reopened to be re-fulfilled.

    The success message: Shipment voided — its fulfillment order is reopened to be re-fulfilled

  6. Check where the units went. The order reopens — Fulfillment returns to Unfulfilled and 0 of 6 units shipped — a Voided filter appears on the tab holding the shipment you just reversed, and the fulfillment order carries a red 1 voided shipment chip. The line's units are back in the fulfillment queue in one of two states:

    • Allocated, if stock for the product is on the shelf in that warehouse. The units are reserved against it, ready to ship for real — the warehouse card counts them as ready.
    • Backordered, if there is still no stock. They reappear in the Backordered — Awaiting Stock panel and wait in Inventory → Backorder Queue like any other shortage, released when stock lands. They never inflate the allocated figure, because nothing is holding them.

    A shipment that was partly on hand and partly on debt splits, and you can see both halves at once: the units that came off real stock go straight back to allocated against that stock, and only the debt units land in the backordered panel.

    After the void: the Voided filter on the tab, two debt units back in the Backordered — Awaiting Stock panel, and the reopened fulfillment order showing a voided shipment and four units ready

  7. Go to Inventory → Fulfillment Debt and click Reload. The claim the shipment created is gone — it no longer appears under Outstanding or under All statuses — and the clearing amount it had posted is reversed along with the shipment's own accounting entry. The Inventory Debt Clearing card above the table drops by that amount.

When the void is refused​

If any part of the shipment's debt has already been repaid — the claim reads Settled, or its Outstanding column shows fewer units owed than were shipped — SKU.io refuses to void or delete the shipment, and nothing changes. The refusal names the shipment and counts the units:

The refusal: Shipment SO-5512.1 cannot be voided: 2 of the 2 unit(s) it shipped on inventory debt have already been repaid from received stock

Shipment … cannot be voided: 2 of the 2 unit(s) it shipped on inventory debt have already been repaid from received stock. Unwinding it now would consume that stock with nothing owed for it, so this shipment is permanent — record the return or the correction against the order instead.

The shipment stays exactly as it was: still under Fulfilled, no Voided filter, nothing reversed and nothing cancelled at the carrier.

note

A shipment the carrier has already dispatched asks you a different question first — This shipment has already shipped, which makes you type VOID and click Void Local Copy to confirm you only want the local record undone. The repaid-debt check runs after that, so a shipment can clear the carrier warning and still be refused.

The reason is that repayment consumed real stock. When a receipt repaid the claim, units from that receipt were spent on the shipment and the cost correction was posted. Undoing the shipment now would leave that stock consumed with nothing to explain it, and understate your inventory by exactly the repaid quantity. There is no action in this version that reverses a repayment, so once a debt shipment has been repaid, it is permanent.

If the goods really did not go out, treat it as a return or a fresh adjustment rather than a void: the stock is genuinely back on the shelf, and a positive adjustment or a restocked return records that honestly. See how debt repays itself for how a subsequent claim on the same product is then settled.

When the sales channel recorded a shipment against canceled items​

Sometimes the shipment was never yours to record. Suppose an order line was canceled and replaced by other lines that shipped in its place — a kit canceled and its components added and shipped instead. When the sales channel later reports the original line as shipped, older versions of SKU.io recorded that shipment against the canceled line: stock it didn't have went out on debt, and the order read over-fulfilled.

SKU.io no longer records a shipment like that. If the replacement lines have already shipped, the channel's report is treated as satisfied. If it can't tell, it records nothing and adds a note to the order that starts Channel shipment not recorded for you to review. A shipment recorded before that change can be reversed from its card:

  1. On the order's Fulfillment tab, click the ⋮ menu on the shipment card and choose Recorded against canceled items. The item only appears on a shipment the sales channel recorded, when every line on it was fulfilled beyond the quantity the order still has open.
  2. Read the Recorded against canceled items dialog and click Reverse shipment. To back out, click Keep shipment. Only reverse it if the items didn't ship themselves, for example because other lines shipped in their place.
  3. On success the message reads Shipment reversed — it was recorded against canceled items.

The shipment is voided and its stock deduction is reversed, along with any inventory debt it created. The sales channel's own fulfillment is kept, because the goods did ship as the other lines. Unlike an ordinary void, nothing goes back into the fulfillment queue: the units were canceled. If the order owes nothing else, the fulfillment order the void reopened is cancelled too, so the canceled items can't be dispatched. A note on the order records who reversed the shipment and how many units. A shipment reversed this way can't be restored, because restoring it would fulfill the canceled items again.

What does not change​

  • Over-shipped units are not owed twice. If a shipment sent more than the order asked for, the surplus was recorded as its own over-fulfillment adjustment, not as debt, and voiding the shipment reverses that adjustment too. Nothing is stranded.
  • Fractional quantities come back whole. For products sold by weight or in fractional units, the exact quantity that shipped on debt is what re-enters the queue — a 2.5-unit debt shipment puts 2.5 units back, not 2.
  • The claim is never "un-repaid". Voiding removes an unrepaid claim; it never rewrites a repaid one, which is what the refusal above protects.

Next steps​

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