Glossary
Order Management System (OMS)
Also called: OMS, order management software
Definition
Software that brings orders from every sales channel into one place and keeps a single authoritative stock number behind them, through invoicing, fulfilment and payment reconciliation.
An OMS sits above your sales channels rather than inside any one of them. Orders arrive from marketplaces and your own storefront, stock is reserved against a single ledger, an invoice is issued, the parcel is picked and shipped, and the marketplace payout is reconciled against what was owed.
The distinguishing feature is not the order list — it is the claim to be the only system allowed to say how many units exist. Once anything else is permitted to hold its own stock number, the whole benefit evaporates.
Related terms
- Warehouse Management System (WMS)Software that manages the physical movement of stock inside a building: where it is stored, how it is picked, how it is packed and how it leaves.
- ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)Software that runs the wider business — accounting, procurement, finance, often manufacturing and payroll — as one integrated system of record.
- Inventory ledgerA record of every stock movement — sale, return, adjustment, transfer, receipt — from which the current quantity is derived rather than stored.