Letting Customers Pre-Order Before Stock Lands
For businesses that sell seasonal or model-year products, the sales cycle does not wait for the warehouse. Dealers and customers want to commit to next season's line before a single unit has arrived, and if the system cannot capture that commitment cleanly, the business ends up tracking it in a spreadsheet instead, disconnected from the ERP that is supposed to be the source of truth.
Why a plain sales order is not enough
A standard sales order assumes stock either exists or sits on a known purchase order. A pre-order sits earlier than that: a customer commits against a product that may not even have a firm arrival date yet, sometimes priced by model year rather than by a fixed catalog price. Forcing that commitment into an ordinary sales order either blocks it until stock exists, which loses the whole point of taking the order early, or creates a phantom order against inventory that is not really there yet, which corrupts planning for everyone else.
What a pre-order layer actually needs to do
A proper pre-order capability needs to do three things cleanly: hold the customer's demand as a real, reportable commitment before physical stock exists; price it correctly against the right model year or season rather than whatever the current catalog price happens to be; and keep that demand visible to planning, so purchasing and production see real forward commitment instead of guessing at seasonal demand from history alone.
Turning reservations into real orders
The moment stock actually lands, the pre-order needs to convert into a normal order automatically, reserving against real inventory instead of a promise. Done right, the dealer or customer experience does not change at all: they committed once, and the system handles the move from reserved demand to fulfillable order without anyone re-entering the deal by hand.
Our take
Pre-order demand is a planning signal as much as a sales feature: businesses that capture it properly go into a new season with real forward visibility instead of a spreadsheet full of promises nobody trusts. That is the kind of gap Majorbird looks for in a sales and inventory setup, the process that technically works with a workaround but is quietly costing the planning team real visibility. If dealers or customers are asking you to commit before stock exists and your system cannot capture that cleanly yet, it is worth talking through before the next seasonal cycle starts. Get in touch with the Majorbird team at odoo@majorbird.com or www.majorbird.com.