Scenario
A manufacturing team deletes a Work Order (WO) and Work Order Completion (WOC) after assemblies were already completed and transferred. After the deletion, inventory balances become incorrect, including:
- negative lot quantities
- missing component inventory
- mismatched on-hand balances between locations or bins
The expectation is often that deleting the WO or WOC automatically reverses all related inventory activity, but this may not fully restore inventory depending on subsequent transactions that already occurred.
Solution
The appropriate correction depends on whether inventory transfers or downstream transactions already occurred after the Work Order Completion.
Option 1: Use an Inventory Adjustment to Correct the Finished Assembly Quantity
If the completed assembly inventory is incorrect, create an Inventory Adjustment to restore the correct on-hand quantity.
Example process:
- Navigate to: Transactions > Inventory > Adjust Inventory
- Select:
- item
- location
- bin
- lot number (if applicable)
- Enter the adjustment quantity needed to bring the on-hand balance back to the correct amount.
This corrects the finished assembly inventory without rebuilding the Work Order.
Option 2: Reverse Transfers and Reprocess the Inventory Flow
If inventory was already transferred after the WOC was created, simply deleting the WO/WOC may leave inventory balances inconsistent.
In these cases:
- reverse the transfer transactions
- correct the Work Order or Completion process
- re-transfer the inventory afterward
This restores inventory alignment across locations and bins.
Notes
- Deleting a WO or WOC does not always behave like a complete rollback if additional inventory transactions already reference the completed inventory.
- Component inventory may remain deducted depending on the transaction sequence.
- For future corrections, using Assembly Unbuild is generally safer than deleting Work Orders or Work Order Completions directly.
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