When you confirm an order, TRAEDE works out two things for every line: whether the goods are covered (by stock you already have, or by goods on the way), and the dates the customer will see. This article explains how those statuses and dates are decided, and which settings change them.
Delivery status vs. available
On an order you will see two rows of information for each line:
- Delivery status — tells you whether the line is covered and when it can be delivered.
- Available — tells you how much more of that item you could still sell.
Draft and selection orders only show Available, because nothing is set aside for an order until it is approved. Once an order is approved, TRAEDE shows both. You can choose what to see using the Availability mode drop-down, and TRAEDE remembers your choice.
The delivery status colours
Each order line gets a colour that tells you, at a glance, how its pieces are covered. A line can be split across more than one colour — for example, some pieces from stock and some from a delivery on the way.
| Colour | What it means |
|---|---|
| In stock | The pieces are covered by stock you already have. They can be packed right away. |
| Coming — on time | The pieces are covered by goods on the way (a purchase order or production order) that will arrive in time to make the customer's date. |
| Coming — running late | The pieces are covered by goods on the way, but they will arrive too late to make the customer's date — or the incoming goods have no expected date yet. |
| Not covered yet | There is no stock and nothing on the way to cover these pieces. |
The difference between on time and running late is the heart of the system. To decide it, TRAEDE first works out the date the goods need to be ready in your warehouse, then checks whether the incoming goods beat that date. The rest of this article explains how that date is found.
The three times that shape your dates
To turn the date a customer asks for into a realistic plan, TRAEDE uses up to three time buffers. You set these once and TRAEDE applies them automatically.
| Time | What it covers | Everyday example |
|---|---|---|
| Packing time | How long your warehouse needs to pick and pack an order before it can leave. | "We need 1 day to get an order out the door." |
| Transit time | How long the goods spend travelling from your warehouse to the customer. | "Air freight to the US takes 10 days." |
| Receiving time | How long your warehouse needs to receive, count and put away goods that arrive from a supplier before they can be sold. | "When a delivery lands, it takes us 2 days to get it on the shelf." |
Weekends count for travel, but not for warehouse work
Packing time and receiving time are counted in working days, so weekends are skipped — your warehouse is closed on Saturday and Sunday. Transit time is counted in plain days, because a ship or a courier keeps moving over the weekend.
Example: If packing takes 2 days and an order is ready to start on a Friday, it leaves the following Tuesday — Saturday and Sunday don't count. But 2 days of transit over that same weekend counts as 2 days.
Where these times are set
You don't have to set every time on every order. TRAEDE starts from a default and lets you get more specific where you need to. The most specific setting always wins; anything you leave blank falls back to the level above it.
- Transit time starts from a brand-wide default and can be made more specific per region, per country, and finally per customer. You can also set different transit times for different ways of shipping (for example, air vs. sea, or a specific shipping method).
- Packing time starts from a brand-wide default and can be set per warehouse and per customer (for a VIP who gets same-day packing, say).
- Receiving time starts from a brand-wide default and can be set per warehouse (a fast in-house warehouse vs. a slower third-party one).
Example: Your brand default for transit is 5 days. You set the United States to 10 days. You set one priority US customer to 3 days for air shipments. An air order for that customer uses 3 days; any other US order uses 10; everywhere else uses 5.
How the dates are worked out
TRAEDE works backwards from the date the customer asked for. The goal is to arrive on the requested date — not weeks early, and not late.
- Start from the date the customer wants the goods (or the date you have promised them, if you have overridden it).
- Subtract the transit time to find the day the goods need to leave your warehouse.
- Subtract the packing time to find the day the goods need to be ready in the warehouse. This is the deadline everything is measured against.
TRAEDE then checks how the pieces are covered against that warehouse-ready deadline:
- Covered by stock you have now → in stock.
- Covered by goods arriving on or before the deadline → coming, on time.
- Covered by goods arriving after the deadline (or with no date) → coming, running late.
This gives you two customer-facing dates on every line:
- An estimated departure — the day the goods leave your warehouse.
- An estimated delivery — the day they reach the customer.
These two always stay in step: estimated delivery is simply the departure date plus the transit time. They can never contradict each other.
Holding goods vs. pushing the date out
Because TRAEDE plans backwards, it will hold goods to hit the requested date rather than ship them as early as possible. If a customer asks for delivery in three weeks and the item is in stock today, the order still leaves on the day that lands the delivery on the requested date, not today.
The date only moves later when stock genuinely can't be ready in time. If the goods can't be in the warehouse by the deadline, TRAEDE pushes the departure (and therefore the delivery) out to the earliest it can realistically manage, and the line shows as running late so you can see the truth.
Receiving time can turn an "on time" delivery late
A delivery from a supplier isn't sellable the moment the truck arrives — it still has to be received, counted and put away. TRAEDE adds your receiving time to the arrival date before deciding whether incoming goods are on time.
Example: A purchase order arrives on Monday and your receiving time is 2 working days. The goods aren't ready to pick until Wednesday. If the warehouse-ready deadline was Tuesday, that line shows as running late even though the goods technically "arrived on time".
Which date the customer sees
Depending on your delivery terms (Incoterms), the customer cares about a different moment, so TRAEDE shows a different date and label.
| Delivery terms | What the customer sees |
|---|---|
| Customer collects from you (for example EXW, FCA) | Ready for Collection — the departure date, i.e. when the goods are ready to be picked up. |
| You deliver to the customer (for example DAP, DDP, CPT, CIF) | Estimated Delivery — the delivery date, i.e. when the goods reach the customer. |
You can always override the date TRAEDE suggests with a date you commit to. When you do, the other date moves with it so the two stay consistent.
Keeping order confirmations up to date
When you send an order confirmation, TRAEDE remembers the dates the customer was told. If those dates later change — because stock moved, a delivery slipped, or you changed a setting — the order is flagged so you know the customer is now holding an out-of-date confirmation.
| Confirmation status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not sent yet | No confirmation has gone to the customer. |
| Up to date | The customer's confirmation matches the current dates. |
| Needs re-sending | One or more dates have changed since the confirmation was sent. |
This works the same whether you send confirmations by email, EDI or a connected system. Re-sending the confirmation clears the flag.
Two worked examples
Example 1: in stock, held to hit the date
Today is 1 January. The customer asks for delivery on 1 February. Transit is 10 days, packing is 1 day, and the item is in stock.
- Count back 10 days of transit from 1 February → the goods must leave on 22 January.
- Count back 1 packing day → the goods must be ready in the warehouse by 21 January.
- The item is in stock, so the line is in stock.
- TRAEDE holds the goods and ships on 22 January — not 2 January — so it lands on 1 February as asked.
Example 2: stock late, date pushed out
Same setup, but now the customer asks for delivery on 5 January, and the item isn't back in stock until a delivery lands on 2 January.
- Working back from 5 January, the goods would need to leave around 26 December — impossible, there's no stock then.
- The earliest the goods can actually leave is just after they're back in stock on 2 January.
- With 10 days of transit, that lands the delivery around 12 January — about a week late.
- The line shows as coming, running late, and the customer-facing date is the realistic 12 January, not the requested 5 January.
Showing lead times for pieces that aren't covered
For pieces that aren't covered by stock or anything on the way, you can choose to show an estimated lead time. This is optional. In Sales settings you can pick from three modes:
- Do not show — no lead time is shown.
- Always show for non-allocated goods — show a lead time for any uncovered pieces.
- Show for non-allocated make-to-order goods — show a lead time only for uncovered pieces of make-to-order products.
Related articles
- Working with delivery status and available on orders
- How Production Orders Allocate Stock in Reservations V4