Item Reservations

An item reservation holds back a quantity of an item so it isn't sold out from under the person or purpose it's being held for. Reserved quantity still counts as owned inventory (it doesn't change On Hand), but it is subtracted from the quantity shown as available to sell — at the register, in inventory search, and on your website if you sell online. Reservations are managed on the Inventory → Reservations page, and per-item from the Qty Reserved box on the item page.

Common uses: holding in-stock plants for a customer who will pick up later, pulling damaged stock off the sales floor pending a decision, or keeping young plants out of circulation while they finish growing.

How reservations affect available quantity

A reservation subtracts its quantity from the item's available-to-sell count without changing On Hand:

Inventory Search shows on hand minus reserved in the quantity column, with a (+N reserved) link next to it. Click the link to see a Reserved popover listing each reservation's Added, Qty, Customer, Reason, Note, and Until date.
Register item search results show the quantity as available plus reserved — for example 8+2 means 10 on hand, 2 reserved, 8 available.
The item page shows the total in the Qty Reserved box; click it to view or manage that item's reservations.
Online store: if you sell online, the website's available quantity is also reduced by the reserved amount, so web customers can't buy reserved stock.

Releasing a reservation returns the quantity to available stock everywhere at once.

Reservation reasons

Every reservation has a Reason, used for filtering and reporting:

Customer — held for a specific customer (attach the customer so the reservation also appears on their profile).
Quality — held back for quality issues (damaged, not fit for sale yet).
Growing — still growing / not ready to sell.
Transfer — tied to stock moving between stores.

Reservations created at the register offer Customer, Quality, and Growing; the item-page New Reservation form also offers Transfer. Reservations created by holding a work order or sales order automatically get the reason Work Order or Sales Order to match the held sale's type — see Work Orders.

Ways to create a reservation

At the register — ring up items and use the Create Reservations operation (steps below).
From the item page — click the Qty Reserved box and use + New Reservation (steps below).
From a work order or sales order — depending on your company's settings, holding a sale as a Work Order or Sales Order reserves its items automatically, and clients with the Work Orders page can reserve individual lines there. See Work Orders.

Reserve items at the register (Create Reservations)

To reserve inventory for a customer without creating a work order:

Ring up the items to reserve.
Open the register operations menu and choose Create Reservations (under Items...; the tip reads "Reserve rung up items.").
In the Reserve Items window, pick a reason from the dropdown — Customer, Quality, or Growing.
Optionally fill in Expires (Optional), Note (Optional), and Customer (Optional) (pre-filled if a customer is on the sale).
Click Reserve. You'll see "Items were reserved!" when it succeeds.

Returns cannot be reserved — the register shows CANT RESERVE RETURNS if the sale contains a refund line. Reservations created this way appear on the Inventory → Reservations page like any other reservation.

Create or manage reservations from the item page (Qty Reserved)

The item page shows the item's total reserved quantity in the Qty Reserved box. Click it to open the Qty Reserved window, which lists the item's active Reservations at your store:

Click + New Reservation.
In the Reservation Info form, enter the Quantity, pick a Reason (Customer, Quality, Growing, or Transfer), and optionally fill in Note, Customer (type to search customers by name), and Expires (pick a date from the calendar). Stores with lot tracking also choose a Lot #.
Click Create.

To change an existing reservation, click the edit icon on its row, edit the fields, and click Update. If you enter an unrecognizable date in Expires you'll see "Invalid expiration date."

Each row also has a Release button. It prompts "Enter quantity to release:" — enter less than the full quantity to release only part of it; the rest stays reserved. Below the active list, an Expired table shows the item's past (already released) reservations.

The Reservations page (Inventory → Reservations)

Inventory → Reservations lists every active inventory reservation at your store — created at the register, on item pages, or automatically by work orders / sales orders. The page heading is Item Reservations. The download icon at the top right exports the table to CSV (Reservations.csv), and you can sort by clicking column headings or narrow the list with the filter boxes under them.

Columns (some clients have additional columns configured by VMX):

Department — the item's department.
PLU / Description — the item; both link to the item page.
On Hand — current on-hand quantity at your store.
On Order — quantity on submitted/confirmed purchase orders.
Reserved — the reserved quantity. A Total row at the bottom sums the visible rows, and shows "(N of M shown)" when a filter is active.
Reason — why it's reserved. Reservations tied to a held sale show the reason (e.g. Work Order) with a link to the held sale, plus the customer's name linking to their profile.
Added — the date the reservation was created.
By — the employee who created it.
Note — click the note to edit it (a "Reservation note:" prompt opens).
Expires — the reservation's expiration/release date, or - if none.

Stores with lot tracking enabled also see Lot #, Lot Name, and Location columns.

Release a reservation (return quantity to available stock)

Releasing a reservation makes its quantity available to sell again — at the register, in inventory search, and online. On the Inventory → Reservations page:

Click Release on the reservation's row.
Confirm at the "Release Reservation?" prompt by clicking Release!.
You'll see "Reservation released!" and the row disappears from the list.

The trash-can icon on each row does the same thing — confirm at "Delete this item reservation?" and the reservation is removed, returning its quantity to available stock. Releasing never changes On Hand; if the reserved stock is actually gone (died, damaged), use Trash Qty instead.

Adjust a reservation's release date (Release On)

Each reservation can carry an Expires date — the date it should be released back to available stock. To change it on the Inventory → Reservations page:

Click Adjust Date on the reservation's row.
In the Release On prompt, type either a plain-English duration like "2 weeks" or "1 month", or an exact date like "8/14/2026".
Click Adjust. The Expires column updates immediately.

Expired reservations release automatically

A reservation with an Expires date is released automatically once that date has passed — the quantity returns to available stock (including online) without anyone touching it. Leave Expires blank to hold the reservation until someone releases it manually.

Trash reserved quantity (stock that died or was damaged)

If reserved stock is no longer sellable — plants died, product was damaged — use Trash Qty to release the reservation and remove the quantity from inventory in one step:

On the Inventory → Reservations page, click Trash Qty on the reservation's row.
In the Trash Reservation? prompt, enter the quantity to trash and click Trash!.
You'll see "Reservation trashed!".

This releases the reservation and records a TRASH inventory adjustment that reduces the item's On Hand by the entered quantity, so your counts and shrink reporting stay accurate.

When a customer buys their reserved items (Fulfill)

If a sale is rung to a customer who has reservations for the items being purchased, then after the sale posts the register shows an Update Requests & Reservations window with a Reservations Purchased table (PLU, Description, and Qty Fulfilled showing how much of each reservation was bought):

Adjust the Qty Fulfilled amounts if needed.
Click Fulfill — each reservation is reduced by the fulfilled quantity, and removed entirely if fully fulfilled.
Or click Dismiss to leave the reservations unchanged.

See a customer's reservations

Reservations with a customer attached also appear on the Reservations tab of that customer's profile, where staff can release them, adjust dates, or add the reserved items straight onto a register sale for pickup. See Account Reservations.

Reservations from work orders

Held sales of type Work Order (and Sales Order) can reserve their items automatically while on hold, and clients with the Work Orders page can reserve or release individual lines there. Those reservations appear on the Inventory → Reservations page with the reason Work Order (or Sales Order) and a link to the held sale. Work-order specifics — holding the sale, the Work Orders page, per-line Status pills — are covered in Work Orders.