[WooCommerce] How Stock is Managed

Table Of Contents

Autoship Cloud's hosted service, QPilot, regularly synchronizes product data with your WooCommerce store to ensure that the products you have enabled for Autoship can be scheduled and purchased accurately.  Inventory (Stock Status and Quantity) is one property of WooCommerce Products that is synchronized with QPilot. 


This article will help you expertly manage the inventory options for products in WooCommerce and your connected QPilot Site to accurately synchronize product data and easily plan inventory for your Autoship Customers.

WooCommerce Inventory Management

Inventory management begins with your Product data in WooCommerce.  In the examples below, we review several common approaches to inventory management and how each can work for your business and Autoship Customers.

No Inventory Management (WooCommerce Default)

Product Inventory Options

By default, WooCommerce Products are not enabled to manage stock. This means merchants are able to set stock statuses (which are synchronized with Autoship Cloud), but the stock quantity is not entered, tracked, or synchronized. 

Synced Product Example

Inventory Management

When inventory management is enabled, stock can be tracked and synchronized with QPilot. When Synchronized, QPilot will validate stock quanity during processing in addition to checking for the product stock status (in/out of stock).


"Out of stock threshold" Enabled 

WordPress Admins can control their inventory settings for WooCommerce Products, from  WP-Admin > WooCommerce > Settings >> Products >> Inventory tab. 


From here, merchants can set an "Out of Stock Threshold" (minimum quantity of a product to trigger an out of stock status). By setting the Out of Stock Threshold, when inventory drops below that threshold, customers visiting the store will be displayed the item as "Out of Stock".

Products Inventory Settings

In the example (below), the current inventory is displayed on the page for reference, however, the product is still unavailable for purchase due to the "Out of stock threshold".

Product Page: Out of Stock

When an "Out of stock threshold" is reached, both the "Stock quantity" and "Stock status" are synchronized with your connected QPilot Site.  This sets the product as "Out of Stock" in QPilot due to the "Stock status" as pictured below. 

Out of stock status in Autoship Cloud

Backorders Enabled

If you have enabled " Allow Backorders" on products in WooCommerce, and they have been enabled to process with Scheduled Orders, these products will appear as "Available on backorder" on your product pages and "In Stock" for your connected QPilot Site (viewable by navigating to WP-Admin > Autoship Cloud > Products) and will be able to process with Scheduled Orders. 

Backordered Product Example

When backordered products are purchased: the stock level is decreased and results in negative stock.

WC Order backordered product

How to Enable Scheduled Orders to Process Out-of-Stock Products When Backorders Are Not Allowed

The  Autoship Cloud powered by QPilot plugin provides filters that WordPress Developers can use to customize how the stock status of products are displayed on their WooCommerce product pages differently than how stock status is synchronized for Scheduled Orders.

For example, you may want to prevent customers from adding "Out of Stock" items to their WooCommerce cart/checkout, but still wish to treat items as "In Stock" for Autoship Customers' Scheduled Orders. 

This will ensure that Autoship Orders are still created with products that cannot be purchased via Checkout (as backordered items by new customers).

In the example below, a merchant overrides the stock status of WooCommerce products when an "Out of Stock Threshold" of 10 is set.  However, when synchronizing the product with QPilot, it is displayed as "In Stock" and will still be included when Scheduled Orders are processed. 

Stock for Autoship Product

For more details, see our example code snippet for overriding the WooCommerce stock status for products synchronized to QPilot.

Product Availability and Stock Status

Products enabled for Autoship can be selectively enabled (or disabled) to process with Scheduled Orders using Autoship Cloud Product Settings.

In order for products to be included with Scheduled Orders are processed, the product must be "In Stock" and enabled for "Process Scheduled Order" in your connected QPilot Site (also viewable to WordPress Admins in WP-Admin > Autoship Cloud > Products)

The rules that determine if a product will be included when a Scheduled Order is processed:

Note: Stock Status is not a required field, so "N/A" is the same as "In Stock"

Product Enabled for Scheduled Orders

  1. Process Scheduled Order = Enabled
  2. Stock Status = In Stock (or N/A)

Product Disabled for Scheduled Orders

Note: Disabled Products will not be included when Scheduled Orders are processed, and do not count towards the Subtotal Value of the Scheduled Order.
  1. Process Scheduled Order = Disabled
  2. Stock Status = In Stock (or N/A)

OR

  1. Process Scheduled Order = Enabled
  2. Stock Status = Out of Stock

OR

  1. Process Scheduled Order = Disabled
  2. Stock Status = Out of Stock

Managing Disabled Products

For Administrators, disabled products are viewed as a separate group of items when editing Scheduled Orders.

The following icons help to identify why each product on a scheduled order is listed as a "Disabled Item".  Hovering over an icon will display a tooltip that describes the condition of the product.

  • This icon is displayed when "Process Scheduled Order" is not enabled for the product

  • This icon is displayed when a product is "Out of Stock".

For your Autoship Customers, an "Out of Stock" message is displayed within the My Account > Scheduled Orders page if a disabled product is included in their Scheduled Order:

Product Reports

QPilot provides valuable real-time reporting for inventory management which can be accessed within the WordPress admin by navigating to  WP-Admin > Autoship Cloud > Reports. 

The following reports can be used to forecast upcoming inventory needs, contacting Autoship Customers who have Scheduled Orders for specific products, and more.

  • Products by Date - This report displays all products scheduled for upcoming Scheduled Orders, grouped by their date of Next Occurrence.
  • Scheduled Orders by Product - This report displays all customers that have a selected product in their Scheduled Order. 

Learn More About Reports in Autoship Cloud