Order Fulfillment Worksheet does respect reservations, including those tied to special orders, meaning inventory reserved to one order will not be shown as available to any other sales order, even if the same item also exists elsewhere in stock.
How Reservations Are Treated
Whenever an item has been reserved to a specific sales order in Business Central, that reservation is honored by the worksheet’s allocation calculation. The reserved quantity is excluded from what other orders can draw from, regardless of how the worksheet is sorted or filtered, and regardless of how many times a recalculation is run. This ensures that reserved inventory stays committed to the order it was reserved for rather than being pulled away by the worksheet’s dynamic allocation logic in favor of a different order.
Special Orders, Drop Shipments, and Assembly Components
Beyond standard reservations, the worksheet also specifically accounts for special orders and drop shipments as distinct order types with their own fulfillment characteristics, rather than treating them identically to a standard stock order. It similarly evaluates assembly order components for make to order items, checking whether enough component inventory exists to support the assembled quantity requested on a sales line. Together, this means the worksheet is built to recognize these different sourcing and fulfillment paths rather than applying a single generic calculation across every order type.
The Physical Inventory Boundary Still Applies
It is worth keeping in mind that the worksheet’s allocation calculations are based entirely on physical inventory that has already been received, and it does not look ahead to inventory still expected on an incoming purchase order. If a reservation exists against inventory that has not yet arrived, such as a reservation tied to an expected purchase order receipt rather than existing stock, the worksheet’s evaluation of what is available continues to reflect only what is physically on hand today. Once that expected inventory is actually received and posted, it becomes visible to the worksheet like any other receipt, and any reservation against it is respected at that point the same way a reservation against existing stock would be.
Why This Combination Matters
Together, honoring reservations and correctly distinguishing special orders, drop shipments, and assembly components from standard stock orders means the worksheet gives an accurate allocation picture even in businesses with more complex order sourcing, rather than only working cleanly for simple stock orders. This is particularly important for distribution and manufacturing businesses that regularly use a mix of these order types alongside standard sales orders.
Related Tools
Order Fulfillment Worksheet respects reservations across all order types it evaluates, including special orders, drop shipments, and assembly order components, while still limiting its calculations to physically available inventory.
In short, reservations tied to special orders are respected the same as any other reservation, protecting that inventory from being allocated to a different order even when the same item exists in general stock.