If you choose to track items on order (transaction type Ordered Stock) then you need to be diligent about also creating transactions to receive that stock (transaction type Received Stock). The system needs to see a record for receiving stock in order to negate the order quantity. If stock is not received into the system then orders will still appear to have open quantities, and your available quantity of stock will not increase to reflect what you actually have.
You can choose to not track orders from suppliers, and then when you receive stock into the system there will be a negative balance attributed to the supplier, and also in the On Order summary. You can adjust this to zero after the fact by performing an Order Adjustment to negate the quantity.
To accurately track orders from suppliers, choose Companies from the Ribbon menu, locate the company that you wish to order from, open to its details, and then switch to the Inventory Locations tab. Here you can create a new location, naming it something like “Orders”. Make sure that Contributes to total inventory is checked, and Contributes to available on-hand inventory is not checked.
Here’s an example of an Ordered Stock transaction:
And here’s an example of the follow-on transaction to Receive Stock when the ordered items arrive. Note that the example shown below receives 50 pieces, which would negate half the order above, leaving 50 pieces still showing as on order:
