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Independent IFS Cloud practice · Sales
The half that shipped, and the half nobody chased
A customer orders ten and six are in stock, so six go out. The order looks handled, because something moved and the delivery note printed. The other four stay on an open line, possibly with no new promised date and no supply order behind them. The order is neither late nor complete, and the customer asking where the rest is can be the first person to notice.
Key takeaways
- When partial delivery is allowed on a customer order line, the shipped quantity is delivered and the remainder stays open on the line. The order shows movement, so it reads as progressing even when the remainder has stalled.
- When the first shipment goes out on time, an order-level view can read as on time and hide the part that is not.
- The remaining quantity may sit against no supply order, so nothing pulls it forward until someone asks.
- The delivered and remaining quantities and the promised date are recorded in IFS Cloud (worth confirming the exact projections in your environment), so a read-only monitor can list open remainders that have aged past the point where a partial delivery is still normal.
1.Why shipping something hides the rest
A partial delivery sends the available quantity and keeps the line moving instead of holding the whole order for the shortfall. Where partial delivery is allowed, IFS Cloud records the delivered quantity as delivered, the remaining quantity stays open on the line, and the order stays active until the balance ships, unless your setup closes the line within a delivery tolerance (worth checking).
Once something ships, the order has a delivery note and movement, and on a list of orders it reads the same as one that shipped in full. The open remainder raises no shortage of its own, because part of the demand was already satisfied and the rest is waiting.
Whether your setup asks why a line partially delivered two weeks ago still has an open remainder with no forward date and no coverage is worth checking. Where it does not, the remainder stays on the line until the customer or a planner looks at it.
2.What a stalled remainder looks like in the data
A line that shipped short yesterday and ships the rest tomorrow is normal flow. The review separates a backorder still moving toward fulfilment from one that has stalled and lost its owner.
| What you see | What it can point to |
|---|---|
| An open remainder aged past its window | A backorder that stopped moving after the first shipment: live on paper, forgotten in practice. |
| A remainder with no new promised date | A commitment nobody re-planned, so the customer has no answer and the business has no trigger. |
| A backorder line with no coverage behind it | Demand that will not fulfil itself, because there is no supply order pulling the remainder forward. |
| Repeated partials on the same customer | A pattern of short shipments that erodes trust one order at a time, visible only when the orders are listed together. |
A remainder with no forward date and no coverage does not move until a person intervenes, and the person who could intervene believes the order was handled because the first part shipped. A list of all open partially delivered lines shows those stalled remainders as a pattern, which a person working one order line at a time does not see.
3.Reading the remainder and its age, not just the order status
The delivered quantity, the remaining quantity, the promised date, and any linked supply are recorded in IFS Cloud and can be read through OData projections without touching a record (the exact projections are worth confirming in your environment). Detection runs on a schedule, with the first scan after you have set the window, reads partially delivered lines with a quantity still open, and looks at two things:
- Age of the open remainder - how long a backorder line has stayed open past a window you set after the first shipment, so a stalled remainder surfaces before the customer chases it.
- Remainder with no forward date or no coverage - an open quantity that has no new promised date or no supply order behind it, which turns a routine backorder into a commitment that will not fulfil itself.
Because it is a read-only monitoring pattern, it runs beside sales and writes nothing back to IFS. It adds no object inside the client system, so a release update leaves nothing of ours in your IFS to retest. Before each release I check that the standard projections it reads still match, as part of the subscription. It gives the customer-service or planning lead a list of remainders to re-plan or chase, and the decision on each one stays with the people who own the customer.
4.Rolling it out without noise
- Start with key accounts - watch where a stalled remainder costs the most trust first.
- Dry-run first - in the first week the rule only logs which remainders it would have listed, and nothing reaches customer service.
- Window per account class - set how long a remainder may stay open separately for key accounts and for the rest, since a normal wait differs between them.
- Read only, no footprint - standard OData reads, nothing written back, no new object inside IFS Cloud.
Related reading
5.Frequently asked questions
If part of the order shipped, why is the rest a problem?
The shipment makes the order look handled while the remainder is still owed to the customer. The delivered quantity is recorded as delivered and the open quantity stays on the line, where it no longer draws attention. If it has no new promised date or no supply order behind it, nothing moves it forward until the customer asks, and by then the promised date may already have passed.
What counts as an aged backorder?
An aged backorder is an open remainder on a partially delivered customer order line that has stayed open longer than a window you set after the first shipment. The window is a setting, so a key account can have a shorter one than the rest. The monitor lists lines past their window and leaves the reason for the delay, such as no stock or no supply order, to a person to establish.
Does monitoring backorders require writing to IFS Cloud?
No. The delivered and remaining quantities, the promised date, and any linked supply are read through OData projections and analysed outside IFS. Nothing is written back, so there is no upgrade footprint and no new object inside the client system.
6.About the author
Dariusz Myśliwiec brings 18 years hands-on with IFS (Apps 7.5–10 and IFS Cloud). IFS Certified Associate Consultant. PRINCE2® 7. Based in Kraków, delivering remotely across Europe and globally as an independent practice, so you talk to the consultant who builds it.
Selected clients: Fugro · LGC · BVI Medical · Betafence (PRÆSIDIAD) · Barlinek · NGK Ceramics · Newag · Oleofarm.
IFS is a registered trademark of IFS AB; this practice is not affiliated with IFS AB.
Find the remainder before the customer does
Tell me which customers you cannot afford to short and where partial deliveries pile up. On a 30-minute fit call we check whether a rule that reads delivered and remaining quantities and lists backorder lines aged past your window fits your data. The SCM Automation Pack runs three rules today (unconfirmed purchase orders, late deliveries, stock below minimum), so this would be an additional rule built to order, with a dry-run week before anything reaches your team.
