An order in LUSID represents a request to buy or sell a particular quantity of an instrument for a portfolio.
For example, as a Portfolio Manager, you might decide to acquire 150 AAPL US equity shares for your portfolio. You can create this order in LUSID and run compliance checks on it. The order can then be picked up by a Trader and go through blocking, placement and so on.
Creating an order forms the basis of LUSID's order management system, so you might think of the entire flow (shown above) from order creation to portfolio rebalancing as an ‘order lifecycle'.
You can create as many orders as you need at once by specifying an instrument, side (such as buy or sell) and the quantity. Optionally, you might also specify whether it is a market order, limit order or stop order (alongside a limit or stop price) and how long the order should remain in effect for, whether that's until a certain date or until the order is cancelled. You can then move on to running compliance checks and blocking similar orders.
LUSID provides you with lots of flexibility when creating orders:
LUSID can automatically create orders for you after rebalancing your portfolio.
You can create orders outside of LUSID, and have LUSID generate a record of the order for you.
You can manually create orders to reflect any other order creation activity, or use LUSID's Scheduler to automate such processes.