Starshipit WMS orders and allocation

Overview

Once an order is placed in your ecommerce store, it flows automatically into Starshipit. From there, Starshipit WMS picks it up and makes it ready for your warehouse team to fulfil — no manual imports or syncing needed.

The order journey:

1. Customer places an order in your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc).
2. Order appears in Starshipit via your ecommerce integration.
3. WMS picks up the order automatically. It appears in your WMS orders dashboard with status Pending.
4. You release the order when ready. WMS allocates stock and creates pick jobs for your team.
5. Your team picks, packs and ships. Labels are printed in Starshipit.
6. WMS confirms shipment and finalises stock movements.

WMS also stays in sync with Starshipit when orders change — if an order is edited, cancelled, or shipped in Starshipit, WMS updates automatically.

Order statuses

Status	What it means
Pending	Order has arrived in WMS and is awaiting release to the warehouse.
Released	Order has been released; stock is allocated and pick jobs are created.
Partially Shipped	Some items have shipped; others are still outstanding.
Shipped	Order has been fully shipped.

Orders dashboard

The orders dashboard gives you a live view of everything in the fulfilment queue:

• Status filters — filter by one or more statuses at once (e.g. show Pending and Released together).
• Insufficient inventory warning — orders where stock is short are flagged with a warning icon so you can identify and act on shortfalls immediately.
• Allocatable-only filter — shows only orders that can be fulfilled right now, hiding anything blocked by stock shortfalls.
• Select all — applies to your currently filtered results only, so bulk actions only affect the orders you can see.
• Order tagging — bulk-apply Starshipit tags to selected orders directly from WMS.
• Order detail view — open any order to see a full timeline of events, stock movements, and processing history.

Releasing orders

Orders start as Pending and have no stock committed until you release them. This gives you control over when your warehouse starts working on each order.

Release a single order

1. Open the Orders dashboard.
2. Select a Pending order.
3. Click Release.

WMS checks available inventory, allocates stock, and creates a pick job.

Release orders in bulk

Use the checkboxes to select multiple orders, then choose Release selected. The allocatable-only filter is useful here — apply it first so you're only releasing orders that actually have stock.

Bulk release is ideal for end-of-day waves, courier cut-off runs, or batches grouped by sales channel.

How WMS allocates stock

When you release an order, WMS automatically reserves the right stock for each line item. This is called allocation.

WMS follows the rules configured on each product to decide what to reserve:

• Stock is allocated from pick face locations first, keeping picking fast and efficient.
• If a pick face is low, WMS can pull from bulk storage and may trigger a replenishment job to top up the pick face.
• For batch or serial tracked products, allocation locks in the specific batch or serial number.
• The allocation strategy (FIFO, FEFO, etc.) on each product determines which units are reserved when multiple options exist.

See Products and inventory configuration for how to configure these rules, and Replenishment for how pick face restocking works.

When an order can't be fully allocated

If there isn't enough stock, WMS flags the order with a warning rather than processing it silently. Your options:

• Wait for incoming stock (visible on your inventory dashboard when a purchase order is in progress).
• Edit the order in Starshipit to adjust or substitute items.
• Partially ship what's available if your workflow supports it.

Batch and wave workflows

WMS supports releasing and picking orders in batches — grouping multiple orders into a single run to reduce walking time and speed up fulfilment. These workflows are covered in the Picking and Expedited fulfilment guides.

When orders change or cancel

Order updates — If you edit an order in Starshipit (items, quantities, address), WMS receives the update automatically. Any existing allocations and pick jobs are cancelled and the order returns to Pending for re-release with the correct details.

Cancellations — When an order is cancelled in Starshipit, WMS frees the reserved stock and cancels any related pick or pack jobs.

Shipments — When a label is printed or an order is shipped in Starshipit, WMS marks the order as Shipped (or Partially Shipped) and finalises inventory movements.

FAQ