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Managing Pre-orders
on Brightpearl

Brightpearl

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Brightpearl is an ERP and retail operations platform built to help merchants streamline their e-commerce workflows. It integrates with Shopify to sync certain product data (SKUs, prices, inventory), orders, and customer information. While Brightpearl doesn’t allow negative inventory, it provides alternative methods for handling pre-orders and overselling, such as virtual warehouses.

This guide will break down how Brightpearl handles key pre-order functions like negative stock, Shopify’s “On Hold” status, and fulfilment workflows—so you’ll know what to expect, where it excels, and any workarounds you may need.

How ERPs and pre-orders work together in the modern ecommerce stack

As the central source of truth for your ecommerce operations, ERPs play a crucial role in pre-orders—primarily in two areas:

Product & inventory management (tracking stock, syncing availability).
Order processing (handling pre-order statuses and fulfilment flows).

Below is a typical flow. Click through to see how Shopify, the ERP and pre-order application interact.

Order & Inventory Sync

The ERP synchronizes orders and inventory across various sales channels (e.g., Shopify, Amazon, retail POS).

Key Considerations for Managing Pre-orders on Brightpearl

In the diagram above you may have noticed the word “should” being used a couple of times… That’s because not all ERPs fully support Shopify’s pre-order features out of the box. Some may lack support for negative inventory counts or fail to respect Shopify’s “On Hold” order status, requiring workarounds or additional configuration. Read on to see how Brightpearl interacts with Shopify pre-orders and what you might need to adjust.

Syncing Shopify Products

Brightpearl integrates with Shopify to synchronize certain product data, specifically SKUs, inventory levels, and prices. Here’s how each element is managed:
• SKUs: Products in Brightpearl and Shopify are automatically linked by matching SKUs, ensuring that inventory and pricing updates map to the correct items across both platforms.
• Inventory Levels: Brightpearl updates Shopify with current on-hand inventory from selected warehouses in near real-time, plus a nightly bulk update to maintain consistency.
• Prices: Product prices in Shopify are updated from a designated price list in Brightpearl, usually applied overnight to keep pricing aligned.
Other product attributes—titles, descriptions, images—do not sync from Brightpearl to Shopify; these must be managed directly in Shopify. Brightpearl does allow importing new products from Shopify for initial setup, but ongoing updates for titles/descriptions aren’t supported.

Syncing Shopify Orders

Yes, Brightpearl integrates with Shopify to synchronize order data, including statuses, customer details, and line items. Here’s how each component is managed:
• Order Creation: New Shopify orders automatically create corresponding orders in Brightpearl, generating or updating customer records and reserving inventory.
• Order Statuses: Brightpearl can map statuses for new, fraudulent, or canceled orders to match their counterparts in Shopify.
• Customer Details: Customer billing/shipping info is imported into Brightpearl. If the customer is new, a record is created; otherwise, existing details are updated.
• Line Items: The products from the Shopify order are added to the Brightpearl order. Matching SKUs link directly; unknown items become non-stock tracked line items.
This keeps Brightpearl and Shopify aligned, giving you a real-time view of orders, customers, and inventory across both platforms.

Handling Negative Inventory

Brightpearl does not support negative inventory levels; it prevents inventory from dropping below zero. However, you can still manage pre-orders and overselling in alternative ways:
• Pre-orders: Use virtual warehouses to track items that aren’t yet physically in stock. Assign pre-order sales to this virtual warehouse so you can monitor incoming inventory and allocate it once it arrives.
• Overselling: Brightpearl’s allocation system reserves stock as orders arrive, reducing the risk of overselling. Maintaining up-to-date inventory records helps ensure accurate allocations and prevents selling items you don’t have.
By using these strategies—rather than negative inventory—you can handle pre-orders and overselling effectively within Brightpearl.

Resources:

• Handling negative inventory

Respecting Shopify’s “On Hold” Status

Brightpearl’s integration with Shopify supports configuring statuses such as new, fraudulent, or canceled. However, an explicit “on hold” status is not detailed in the documentation. If you need an on-hold workflow (e.g., for pre-orders), you can use Brightpearl’s partial fulfillment or dropshipping features to hold back certain items until stock arrives. You might also map a custom status in Brightpearl to effectively represent “on hold” for internal tracking.

Pre-Order-Specific Features

Brightpearl offers specific workflows to manage pre-orders using virtual warehouses:
• Create a Virtual Warehouse: Represent incoming/not-yet-available stock by assigning it to a virtual warehouse.
• Assign Pre-Orders: Place pre-order sales in the virtual warehouse to keep them separate from in-stock items.
• Manage Inventory Levels: Monitor virtual warehouse stock to avoid overselling. Once the physical stock arrives, transfer it from the virtual warehouse to your main warehouse, then fulfill the pre-orders accordingly.

Resources:

• Brightpearl virtual warehouse doc

Custom Workflows with Order Tags, Line-item Properties or Metafields

Brightpearl’s integration with Shopify allows certain customizations involving tags, line-item properties, and metafields (although limitations apply):
• Shopify Tags & Line-Item Properties (via Order Notes): You can map Shopify order notes into custom fields in Brightpearl, embedding tags or line-item properties that trigger specific workflows in Brightpearl.
• Shopify Metafields: Brightpearl doesn’t natively map Shopify metafields into its fields. Instead, you can use external automation tools (e.g., Shopify Flow) to manage metafields or line-item properties, which can then flow into Brightpearl through existing integration points for further customization.

Supporting Full vs. Partial Order Fulfilment

Yes, Brightpearl supports workflows for both full and partial order fulfillment, offering flexibility in managing various scenarios:
• Full Order Fulfillment: If all items are in stock, you can process them with a single goods-out note. The warehouse picks, packs, and ships everything together.
• Partial Fulfillment: When certain items are unavailable, enable partial fulfillment in Settings > Products/Inventory > Inventory Settings. You can ship what’s in stock now, and the remaining items stay on the original order until they arrive.
• Automation Engine: Brightpearl’s Automation Engine can set rules to automatically fulfill orders or partially fulfill them based on inventory availability, minimizing manual intervention.

Resources:

• Brightpearl doc, mentioning partial fulfillment

Summary

Brightpearl support for
Shopify Pre-orders

Pre-order touchpoint	Brightpearl support
Products sync with Shopify	✅ Syncs SKUs, prices, and inventory (but not titles/descriptions) with Shopify
Orders sync with Shopify	✅ Imports Shopify orders, statuses, customer details, and line items
Negative inventory support	⚠️ No negative inventory; use virtual warehouses for pre-orders (We’ve marked this down as caution, but it may well be more elegant than negative stock)
Shopify “On Hold” status recognition	⚠️ No explicit “on hold” status; use custom mappings
Specific pre-order support	✅ Virtual warehouses let you track and fulfill pre-orders
Custom workflows	✅ Shopify tags, line-item properties, and metafields can trigger tailored flows
Partial fulfilment support	✅ Supports both full and partial shipments with automation

Strengths & Limitations

✅ Strengths
summary_strengths: • Ecomm specific ERP
• Seamless SKU/price/inventory sync with Shopify
• Flexible pre-order system via virtual warehouses
• Powerful partial fulfillment and automation options

⚠️ Limitations
• No native negative inventory (use virtual warehouses insetead)
• No direct “hold” status
• Doesn’t sync product descriptions or images