Wholesale orders & inventory

Connect customer orders, payment checks, warehouse preparation and dispatch for a homewares wholesaler.

Concept study with a fictional brand and illustrative data; not a client delivery.

Meridian — Wholesale orders & inventory · Illustrative interface — AI-generated design preview · English interface · Illustrative data. Swipe horizontally to inspect on mobile.

01 /

The challenge

Sales, finance and the warehouse work from different records. Partial payment, split shipments and stock shortages cannot be represented reliably by a single order status.

02 /

The approach

Track payment and fulfillment separately. An order panel brings together line items, quantities, totals and activity; stock exceptions feed into preparation rather than treating a paid order as already shipped.

03 /

Functional scope & business rules

Proposed requirements for the illustrated scenario, ready for a scoping discussion. Rules and integrations are agreed before implementation.

User roles

Sales staff, finance staff, warehouse operators and supervisors

Typical workflow

1Confirm customer order
2Check payment and reserve stock
3Pick and dispatch in batches
4Reconcile balance and close

Customer orders and line items

Store customer, delivery address, currency, pricing terms and notes. Each SKU retains unit, quantity, price, discount and tax basis; confirmed orders preserve a price snapshot when the catalogue changes.

Separate payment and fulfillment

Track unpaid, partially paid and paid independently from preparation and shipment states. Finance records receipts and evidence; the remaining balance and agreed credit or deposit rules determine dispatch eligibility.

Available and reserved inventory

Separate on-hand, reserved and available quantities by warehouse. Confirmation reserves stock; cancellation releases it. Concurrent orders cannot reserve the same units, and shortages become replenishment work.

Split shipments and tracking

Create multiple dispatch records for one order with shipped and outstanding quantities per line. Picking confirmation records carrier and tracking reference; cumulative dispatch cannot exceed the confirmed quantity.

Amendments, returns and approvals

Changes to unshipped lines retain reasons and approval. Shipped goods follow a return process; physical receipt, stock adjustment and refund are confirmed separately rather than assumed to happen together.

Operations views and audit history

Search and export authorized orders by customer, payment, fulfillment and date. Separate shortages, overdue balances and approvals; significant changes record actor, time, old value and new value.

A worked example

SO-2084 has two product lines totaling $2,840 plus $85 shipping. The customer pays a deposit and one item is short. Finance retains a partial-payment state while the warehouse ships available units and tracks the remainder; later receipts and dispatches update independently.

Suggested acceptance checks

Competing orders cannot double-reserve the last available units or silently create negative availability.
Partial payment and partial dispatch produce independent outstanding balances and SKU quantities.
Receiving returned goods and issuing a refund can occur separately, with a record of each.

Integrations & scope decisions

Agree warehouses, inventory authority, rounding and tax rules, credit terms and negative-stock policy. Accounting, payments and shipping labels are optional integrations; a general ledger, purchasing system or manufacturing ERP is not included by default.