How Bookkeep Changes Shopify Inventory Quantities

Bookkeep changes two Shopify quantities, incoming and available, and only through purchase orders.

Bookkeep's adjustments to Shopify inventory quantities follow the recommended pattern to never put a count outright, but instead, add or subtract from existing stock. every adjustment carries a reason and links back to the originating purchase order or receiving record, so you can see exactly what Bookkeep did in Shopify's adjustment history.

• Incoming is stock you are expecting. Shopify shows it as Incoming on the product's inventory page. It is not sellable until it is received, at which point it becomes available.
• Available is stock you can sell right now.

Note: other inventory concepts like reserved are not currently used but might be in the future.

The lifecycle at a glance

What you do	Incoming	Available	Reason shown in Shopify
Create or edit a draft PO
Mark as ordered	+ ordered qty		Movement created
Receive units you ordered	− received	+ received	Received
Receive more than ordered		+ overage	Received
Receive an item not on the PO		+ received	Received
Reject units on a receipt	− rejected		Movement canceled
Void a receipt	reverses the receipt exactly	reverses the receipt exactly	Correction, Movement created
Cost correction
Cancel a PO	− ordered qty		Movement canceled
Revert to draft	− unreceived qty		Movement canceled
Delete or archive a PO
Duplicate a PO
Import from Stocky
Bill to QuickBooks

Blank cells in the table mean no change

Pushing Updates to Shopify

Saving a receipt records your counts immediately, then a background sync makes the Shopify changes. The receipt's own status shows where it is:

Receipt status	Shopify quantities
Pending sync	Unchanged. The sync has not started.
Syncing	Changing now.
Committed	Done. Incoming and available reflect the receipt.
Sync failed	Possibly part done. Click Retry on the receipt. Bookkeep resends only what did not land.

A receipt cannot start syncing until the PO's incoming sync has finished. If you receive seconds after marking a PO ordered, the receipt waits for the order push first.

**Drafts: **No adjustments to stock. Add lines, change quantities, move lines between locations, delete the whole order...Shopify doesn't know the PO exists.

Marked Ordered: Each line's quantity pushes to Shopify's incoming at that line's location. A line with no location of its own uses the PO's destination location. If one item appears on several lines for the same location, Bookkeep adds them together and sends one change.

The push happens in the background, so you can keep working with your inventory.

** Edits to ordered PO's:** Once ordered, quantities and locations are locked. You can still change costs, notes, dates, tracking, and supplier references, because none of those affect Shopify quantities. To change a quantity, add a line, or move stock to a different location, revert the PO to draft, edit it, and mark it ordered again.

Receiving: Pushes Shopify's available counts up. Technically, Bookkeep supports three receiving modes:

• Units you ordered: Units received up to the quantity still outstanding on the line move from incoming to available in a single step. Incoming drops by the amount, available rises by the same amount, and Shopify records the change with the reason Received and a link to the receipt.
• More than you ordered: You can receive above the ordered quantity. Bookkeep warns you but lets you continue. The extra units go straight into available. Incoming is not reduced for them, because they were never expected, so incoming never drops below zero on Bookkeep's account.
• Items not on the PO: If a shipment includes something you did not order, add it on the receive screen as an unplanned item. Bookkeep adds a line to the PO for it and puts the received units straight into available. Nothing was ever added to incoming for these lines, and you cannot reject units on them.

Rejected units

Rejected units, whether damaged in transit, wrong item, or short, leave incoming and never enter available. Shopify records the change as Movement canceled with a link to the receipt. Rejection is the right tool for goods that arrive in bad shape. Goods that break after they are on the shelf are a Shopify adjustment, covered below.

On any line, received plus rejected cannot exceed the quantity still outstanding. The receive screen blocks the receipt until you fix the line.

Receiving in Shopify POS

The Receive Inventory tile uses the same path as the web app, so quantities move exactly as described above. Two differences: the tile shows only lines headed to the register's location, and it does not take rejected quantities. See Receive a Purchase Order in Shopify POS.

Fixing a receipt

Voiding reverses the receipt's Shopify changes exactly, using the quantities Bookkeep recorded when the receipt synced:

• Units that moved from incoming to available move back from available to incoming, with the reason Correction.
• Over-received and unplanned units are subtracted from available.
• Rejected units are added back to incoming, since they left incoming when rejected.

The PO steps back to Ordered or Partial and the stock is on order again, so you can receive it correctly. If any of the units were sold between receiving and voiding, moving them back can take available below zero. Bookkeep checks Shopify's live available count before the void and warns you with the projected result per SKU and location. By default you confirm to proceed.

Cost correction

A cost correction changes the unit cost of a received line and nothing else. Shopify quantities do not move. See Fix a Receipt: Voids and Cost Corrections.

Closing or reopening an order

Cancel

You can cancel a Draft or Ordered PO that has no receipts. Cancelling an ordered PO removes its quantities from incoming, with the reason Movement canceled. A PO with any receipt cannot be cancelled. Void the receipts first, or revert to draft.

Revert to draft

An Ordered or Partial PO can go back to Draft. Bookkeep removes only the unreceived quantity from incoming. Units already received stay in available and their receipts stay on the order. Receiving is paused until you mark the PO ordered again, and marking it ordered waits until the reversal has finished in Shopify.

Revert to draft is how you fix a PO whose quantities or locations were wrong, and how you clear leftover incoming from a short shipment.

Short shipments

If a supplier ships 80 of 100 and the rest is never coming, the missing 20 stay in incoming until you clear them. Bookkeep does not close short on its own. Revert the PO to draft, lower the ordered quantity to what you received, and mark it ordered again. With nothing outstanding, Bookkeep pushes no new incoming.

Delete and archive

Neither changes Shopify. Archive hides a finished or cancelled PO from the list. Delete is only available once a PO's incoming has already been removed, so an ordered PO must be cancelled or reverted first. If you see "This order cannot be deleted yet," the incoming reversal is still running.

Duplicate

Duplicating a PO, whether a Bookkeep PO or an imported Stocky PO, creates a new Draft. Nothing reaches Shopify until you mark the copy ordered.

Inventory Adjustment Reports

• From the purchase order. Open an ordered PO and click View Analytics to see every Shopify change made for that order: day, time, product, SKU, change, reason, location, and who made it. A View in Shopify link opens the same list in Shopify's adjustment report.
• From the item. The Inventory Item Report for a variant, reachable from a PO line or from the product page in Shopify admin, has a Shopify movement history section showing all adjustments for that variant, including ones made outside Bookkeep.