Open quantity on a sales order line is the part of the line the customer is still owed: the ordered quantity minus the quantity shipped so far, never allowed below zero. It is the live remaining obligation rather than the original ask, and it is the number planning treats as demand, so the plan shrinks automatically as shipments go out the door.
This entry defines open quantity and shows how it reads inside EDGEBIC by User Solutions. For the wider index of terms, see the manufacturing glossary; for the row it sits on, see what is a sales order line; and for the document that governs it, see EDGEBIC sales orders explained.
How It Works
A sales order line stores two quantities. The first is the ordered quantity, which is what the customer asked for and does not change as fulfillment progresses. The second is the cumulative quantity shipped, which starts at zero and rises as goods leave.
Open quantity is the difference between them, clamped so it cannot fall below zero. It is derived rather than stored, which is the detail that makes it trustworthy: there is no separate open-quantity field anywhere to fall out of step, and no recalculation job that could be skipped. Record a shipment and every surface that reads open quantity is immediately correct.
The floor at zero matters. If a line is over-shipped, plain subtraction would produce a negative number, and negative demand behaves like phantom supply in a projection, quietly inflating what the plant appears able to promise. Clamping at zero means an over-shipped line reads as satisfied and simply stops asking for anything.
The practical consequence is that planning consumes the open quantity, not the ordered quantity. When the projection asks a confirmed order what it still needs, the answer is the open balance. That is why partial fulfillment does not require anyone to edit the order: the record of what was ordered stays intact, the record of what shipped grows, and the demand the plant sees falls out of the two.
A Concrete Example
A customer orders 500 units on one line, created June 1. Nothing has shipped, so shipped reads 0 and open quantity reads 500. Planning sees 500 units of firm demand in that line's due-date bucket.
On June 15 a first partial shipment of 150 goes out. The shipped total is updated to 150 and the open quantity becomes 350. Nobody edits the ordered quantity. The next projection run nets 350 against supply instead of 500, so the plant stops planning to build parts it has already delivered.
On July 1 a second shipment brings the cumulative total to 350, and the open quantity falls to 150. On July 20 the final shipment brings shipped to 500 and open quantity to 0. The line stops contributing demand entirely, while still standing as the permanent record that 500 units were ordered and 500 were shipped.
Had someone instead edited the ordered quantity down to 350 after the first shipment, the arithmetic would have looked right for a moment and the history would have been destroyed. There would be no way left to answer how much the customer actually ordered, or to compare what was promised with what was delivered.
How EDGEBIC Uses It
In EDGEBIC, a sales order line carries an ordered quantity and a cumulative shipped quantity, and the open quantity is computed from them as ordered minus shipped with a floor of zero. It is not a stored column, so it is always consistent with the shipment record by construction.
Open quantity is what the inventory projection reads when it gathers firm demand from confirmed sales orders. A line for 500 that has shipped 350 contributes 150 units of demand, bucketed by that line's own due date, with no planner intervention required. The demand simply reflects reality as shipments post.
Two conditions have to hold before a line contributes anything at all. The parent order must be in a confirmed state, since draft and canceled orders are deliberately excluded, and the open quantity must be above zero. A fully shipped line on a confirmed order is silent in the plan, which is exactly right.
To record fulfillment correctly, update the shipped field with the new cumulative total rather than the size of the latest shipment. That single habit keeps open quantity honest across any number of partial deliveries.
For the fulfillment side of the same line, see shipped quantity on a sales order line. For the lifecycle that decides whether a line counts at all, see what is a sales order status, and for where this demand lands in the plan, see projected available balance.
Open quantity is the part of a sales order line the customer is still owed: the ordered quantity minus the quantity shipped so far, floored at zero so it can never go negative. It is the remaining obligation, not the original order size. Because planning cares about what is still to be delivered rather than what was first requested, open quantity is the number the inventory projection and the master schedule net against supply. As shipments post, the open quantity falls and the demand on the plan shrinks with it.
It is calculated, not stored. Open quantity is derived on the fly from two values that are stored: the line quantity and the cumulative quantity shipped. Nothing writes an open quantity anywhere, which means it can never drift out of step with the shipment record. Update the shipped total and the open quantity is instantly correct everywhere it appears, with no recalculation step and no reconciliation job to run.
Because over-shipping should not create negative demand. If a line for 500 is closed out with 520 shipped, the arithmetic would give minus 20, and a negative demand figure would quietly add phantom supply to the projection. Flooring at zero means an over-shipped line simply reads as fully satisfied and stops contributing demand. The overage is a shipping matter to reconcile in its own right, not something the production plan should try to absorb.
No, and you should not. Record the shipment by updating the line's cumulative shipped quantity to 350, and the open quantity becomes 150 automatically. The next time the inventory projection runs, that line contributes 150 units of firm demand rather than 500, without anyone touching the order quantity itself. Editing the ordered quantity down to 150 would look like it works, but it destroys the record of what the customer actually ordered and breaks the shipped-versus-ordered comparison forever. The whole point of the split between ordered, shipped, and open is that you record reality once and let the derived number follow.
Check that the shipped quantity is being recorded as a cumulative total rather than as the size of the latest shipment. If a line for 500 went out in shipments of 150, 200, and 150, the shipped field should read 500 at the end, not 150. If someone entered each shipment as a replacement rather than a running total, the field will show only the last one and the open quantity will look far larger than the truth. Also confirm the parent order is still in a status that produces firm demand, because a line only contributes demand while its order is confirmed. If both of those are right and demand still appears, the remaining suspect is a second line for the same product on the same order that has not shipped yet.
Expert Q&A: Deep Dive
Q: We shipped 350 of a 500-unit line. Do I need to edit the order so planning stops asking for 500?
A: No, and you should not. Record the shipment by updating the line's cumulative shipped quantity to 350, and the open quantity becomes 150 automatically. The next time the inventory projection runs, that line contributes 150 units of firm demand rather than 500, without anyone touching the order quantity itself. Editing the ordered quantity down to 150 would look like it works, but it destroys the record of what the customer actually ordered and breaks the shipped-versus-ordered comparison forever. The whole point of the split between ordered, shipped, and open is that you record reality once and let the derived number follow.
Q: A line looks fully shipped but planning still shows demand for it. What should I check?
A: Check that the shipped quantity is being recorded as a cumulative total rather than as the size of the latest shipment. If a line for 500 went out in shipments of 150, 200, and 150, the shipped field should read 500 at the end, not 150. If someone entered each shipment as a replacement rather than a running total, the field will show only the last one and the open quantity will look far larger than the truth. Also confirm the parent order is still in a status that produces firm demand, because a line only contributes demand while its order is confirmed. If both of those are right and demand still appears, the remaining suspect is a second line for the same product on the same order that has not shipped yet.
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