Home

Managing Pre-orders
on your ERP

See Individual Guides

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems run the backstage magic of your business—from tracking inventory and orders, to handling financials and fulfillment. This gives merchants a single source of truth for tracking and managing their operations.

When it comes to pre-orders, it’s important to understand how your ERP reacts to negative inventory, holding orders and partial fulfilment.

This guide breaks down the key ERP behaviors to check before implementing pre-orders, including negative stock handling, Shopify’s “On Hold” status, and fulfillment workflows. By understanding these aspects upfront, you’ll know what to expect and what workarounds might be necessary.

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.

1

Order & Inventory Sync

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

Individual Pre-order ERP Guides

We’ve researched some of the most popular ERPs used in ecommerce and compiled detailed guides for each one. See your ERP? Click on its logo below. Don’t see your ERP? Keep scrolling to read the general considerations that apply to most systems.

Looking at what matters for pre-order ERP support

Key Considerations for Managing Pre-Orders on ERPs

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 ERPs lack support for negative inventory count or Shopify’s “On Hold” order status, requiring workarounds or additional configuration. These limitations can impact how smoothly your pre-order workflows operate.

Before setting up pre-orders, it’s important to understand your ERP’s behaviour and limitations so you can plan for any necessary adjustments. Read on to learn about the key considerations and potential challenges to look out for.

Syncing Shopify Products

All Ecommerce compatible ERPs will sync product data (titles, SKUs, prices, inventory levels, etc.) with Shopify to maintain accurate inventory and product details across sales channels. However, the method of syncing can vary significantly depending on the connector or integration platform used.

Merchants should check whether the product sync is real-time or scheduled, as delayed syncing can cause inventory discrepancies during high-demand pre-orders. It’s also important to ensure that changes made within the ERP (e.g., inventory adjustments or price updates) automatically reflect in Shopify to avoid unwanted overselling or mispricing.

Syncing Shopify Orders

ERPs sync Shopify orders to centralize fulfillment and inventory tracking. However, pre-order scenarios (like delayed charges or split shipments) introduce complexities that require more advanced order management.

Merchants should check if their ERP supports advanced order statuses commonly used in pre-orders, such as “On Hold” and “Partially Fulfilled.” If these statuses aren’t supported or cannot be mapped directly within the ERP or connector, you may need to implement custom workflows using Shopify tags, line-item properties, or metafields. These custom attributes can be leveraged to trigger automation rules or workflow actions, ensuring accurate fulfillment and customer communication.

Handling Negative Inventory

Not all ERPs allow negative inventory by default, but enabling this feature is often necessary for pre-orders or overselling scenarios. Merchants should check if their ERP supports negative inventory and how to enable it.

This setting is typically found in the inventory management or product settings within the ERP. Enabling negative inventory allows the system to process pre-orders even when on-hand stock is depleted. Without this setting, the ERP might block pre-orders if inventory levels are negative or out of stock.

Respecting Shopify’s “On Hold” Status

Whether an ERP recognizes Shopify’s “On Hold” order status depends on the connector or integration used. Some ERPs do not natively support this status, requiring merchants to manually map “On Hold” in Shopify to a corresponding custom status in the ERP.

The “On Hold” status signifies that an order or line item is valid but should not be fulfilled yet—a common requirement for pre-orders where inventory isn’t ready or charges are deferred. If the ERP doesn’t support this natively, merchants may need to create custom workflows using tags or line-item properties to manually hold fulfilment.

Another approach is to use an ERP that allows negative inventory, which enables pre-orders even when stock is not currently available. In this case, the ERP must be configured to hold fulfilment until inventory is restocked, ensuring that orders aren’t shipped prematurely.

Pre-Order-Specific Features

Most ERPs do not have a built-in pre-order module, but many are highly customizable. Merchants can often use a combination of features like negative inventory, custom order statuses, and workflow automation to effectively manage pre-orders.

It’s worth checking if the ERP supports pre-order-specific workflows or enhancements through third-party connectors. If not, merchants may need to build custom workflows to replicate pre-order functionality, such as delayed fulfilment or deferred charges.

Custom Workflows with Shopify Tags and Metafields

Some ERPs allow the use of Shopify tags, line-item properties, or metafields to create custom workflows, but this is often dependent on the integration platform. Merchants should verify if their ERP can import Shopify tags and metafields and whether it supports automated actions based on those tags.

If supported, custom workflows can automate pre-order processes like holding fulfillment, partially fulfilling (or not) and inventory rules.

Supporting Full vs. Partial Order Fulfilment

A key question for any merchant offering pre-orders is whether to accept mixed orders of buy-now and pre-order items. This decision comes with three possible paths:

Disallow mixed buy-now/pre-order orders, which simplifies fulfilment but may reduce average order value (AOV).
Fulfil in multiple shipments, which maintains a positive customer experience but incurs additional shipping fees.
Hold fulfilment until all items are ready, minimising shipping costs but delaying customer deliveries.

There is no right or wrong answer, but when in doubt, configuring your pre-order app to isolate pre-orders is the most straightforward approach. This avoids split shipments but may result in a lower AOV.

Before deciding, merchants should check if their ERP can split orders—for example, by shipping in-stock items while holding pre-ordered line-items. This typically requires item fulfilment records or split shipment requests based on Shopify line-item properties. If the ERP cannot support split shipments, merchants may need to manually manage the process when accepting mixed orders.

Summary

Does your ERP have good support for
Shopify Pre-orders?

Pre-order touchpoint	ERP support
Products sync with Shopify
Order sync with Shopify
Negative inventory support
Shopify “On Hold” status recognition
Specific pre-order support
Custom workflows
Partial fulfilment support