Receiving Inventory Against a Purchase Order

Receiving is where a purchase order pays off: the stock you ordered becomes stock you can sell. In Stockroom, receiving happens right on the purchase order - enter what arrived, and your Shopify inventory updates at the location you choose. Receive everything at once, or in as many partial deliveries as it takes. You can also record what each delivery actually cost, so your product costs stay accurate.

A dark Receive button appears on a purchase order once it's been marked as Ordered, and stays available while it's Partial (some items received, some still outstanding). Click it and you pick one of two ways to receive. Receive & count opens the receiving card, where you enter or scan what actually arrived - that is the flow below. Receive all takes the whole remaining order in one step, without opening the card; see Receiving a whole order without counting. Draft POs can't be received yet - mark them as ordered first.

Open the purchase order, click Receive, and choose Receive & count. A Receive stock card opens right on the page:

Only a few items turned up? You do not have to open the whole order. On the Items card, every line that still has units on order carries a small package button on the right: click it and the Receive stock card opens holding just that line, with the quantity already filled in to what is still outstanding. Change it to what actually arrived, correct the cost if the invoice differs, and receive. To do several lines at once, tick their checkboxes and click Receive selected - the card opens holding just those lines, so you can still adjust any quantity or cost before you receive. A line at the top of the card tells you how many of the order's lines you are looking at, and Show all lines brings the rest back. On a partially received order, Receive & count itself opens the card this way too - holding just the lines with items still outstanding, so the deliveries already put away are not in the way while you count the rest. While the card is open the Items list below it is hidden, so you are only ever reading one copy of the lines.

The rest of the order is untouched either way. Each line keeps its own count of what has arrived and what is still owed, and each delivery records the cost you were actually charged - so if the price changes before the rest ships, the later delivery simply records the new one.

On a purchase order split across more than one destination, the lines are grouped into a band per location and Receive to location starts on Each item's ordered destination. Count the whole delivery in one pass and every item is received into the location it was ordered for: Stockroom writes one receipt per destination, and each one appears in the order's History card with its own location.

Everything turned up at one store instead? Pick that location in Receive to location and the whole count lands there. Each band then reads either Receiving here or Ordered for another destination, so you can see what is going where before you confirm.

Each row shows the product name with its codes underneath: the supplier's code first when you have one on record, then Our SKU, followed by the pack code and how many units that location already holds. When several variants of one product are on the order, those codes are how you tell one row from the next. You can also put the whole order in SKU order - open Sort items on the Items card and choose SKU - and the receive rows follow the same order.

Every line's Receive quantity starts at zero, so you can scan or type what actually turned up without clearing a number first. Scan to count sits at the top of the card - each scan adds one to the matching line, and the line you have just scanned moves to the top of the list, so the row you are about to type into is always the one in front of you. Only scanning reorders the list; typing a quantity leaves everything where it is.

Whole order arrived? Click Max counts and every line fills with the quantity still outstanding - then adjust anything that came up short. For a partial delivery, either enter just the lines that arrived, or click Max counts and lower the ones that fell short. Lines left at zero are skipped, so you can receive them in a later delivery. If more arrived than you ordered, enter what actually turned up - the extra units are recorded and land in stock, and the line is flagged so you can see it. See Receiving more than you ordered.

Zero counts sits next to it and clears every quantity, so you can count a delivery from scratch. When your supplier has told Stockroom what's actually in the shipment the quantities pre-fill on their own, a banner says where they came from, and the two buttons become a Set all menu with a third option, Fill from ship notice, for putting those numbers back after you've changed them.

Open the Columns picker on the receive card and switch on Bin to record a shelf location per line while you put the delivery away. Each field pre-fills with whatever is on record for that item at the location you are receiving into, so a settled item just gets confirmed along with the count.

The bin is saved against the location the delivery arrived at, and an empty field never clears a bin you already had. Full details in Bin locations: record where each item is shelved.

Lot tracking is available as an early-access feature and is off by default. Turn it on under Settings > Purchase orders > Early access, then mark each product you want to track with the Track lots checkbox in its product page’s Costs & replenishment section. On an order with marked items, the receive card’s Columns picker also offers Lot and Expiry - type the supplier’s batch number (and its expiry date, if it has one) as you count the delivery, and Stockroom records which batch arrived on which receipt.

Recorded lots live under Inventory > Lots: search by lot number, open a lot to see the purchase orders it arrived on and its full history, correct its dates, or adjust its quantity with a reason. The Expiring lots report lists every dated batch that still holds stock, soonest first. Lot balances are Stockroom’s own records - they never change your Shopify inventory. For the full walkthrough, see Lot tracking: batch numbers and expiry dates.

Sometimes an order is placed against products that have no barcode yet, and you only have the codes once the cartons are open. When any item on the order is missing one, Add barcodes appears at the top of the receiving card. It lists just those items, so you can scan or type a code for each and then Save barcodes.

If you scan something the order doesn't recognise, the banner that appears also offers Assign to an item. Choose the row the code belongs to, press Use it, and save. The scans that missed are counted onto that item, so you don't have to scan the box a second time.

If the code is not on any product in Stockroom at all, the same banner offers Create product - it creates the product in Shopify with the scanned barcode filled in, adds it to this order, and receives the scanned count in one step. It is created as a draft, so it stays off your sales channels until you finish and activate it in Shopify.

Codes are saved to the product in Shopify, so they work everywhere afterwards - scanning, stocktakes, and printed labels. Three things worth knowing:

Invoices don't always match the PO. As you receive, you can:

This is the place to record a price you only learn when the goods turn up, which is how a lot of buying from smaller suppliers works. The Unit cost column is shown by default - if you cannot see it, open the Columns menu on the receive card and tick Unit cost. That choice is remembered per device, so it can be on at your desk and off on a warehouse tablet.

If the PO has shipping or duty charges, a Landed / unit column shows what each unit truly costs once those are spread across the items. See Landed cost: what your stock really costs for the full picture.

Already confirmed the receive with the wrong costs? You can correct them without undoing anything - see Correct a delivery's costs below.

Click Receive stock. You'll see "Stock received!", and:

If receiving at these costs would change a product's average cost, an Update costs and prices? dialog opens. Update costs sets your Shopify cost per item to the new weighted average, and Update prices lets selling prices move with it - each row pre-fills a New price that holds your current margin at the new cost, rounded the way you choose, and blank fields are left untouched. Tick either, both, or neither - the confirm button says exactly what it will do. (For a PO in another currency, set the Exchange rate on the PO first - without one the dialog is not offered.) Full price-update details: Keep your product costs current when you order.

Ordering only some of a product's sizes or colours, but the new figures apply across the range? Both cards carry Also update the other variants of these products, with the exact count they will touch - one for costs, one for prices - so a range that shares a cost or a price stays aligned without you editing it one variant at a time. Prices spread exactly as you typed them here.

If you stock more than one location, Stockroom checks the items you just received the moment the receipt lands. When another location is at or below its reorder point on one of them - and the receiving location now holds more than its max level - the purchase order shows a Suggested transfer card: which location is short, and how many units to send to fill it back up to its max.

Create transfer makes a draft transfer in Shopify - nothing moves until you ship it. The button unlocks a few seconds after receiving, once Shopify has recorded the new stock. After creating, the card offers Open transfer and Mark in transit, and if two locations are short you get one button per destination. Dismiss hides the card for that delivery.

The card uses the same reorder points and max levels as the suggestions on the Transfers page - set those on the Reorder page to power it. If the other locations have no levels set, or nothing is short, the card simply does not appear.

If the delivery matches the order and you have no reason to check it line by line, click Receive on the purchase order and choose Receive all instead. It receives every outstanding item at once - at the PO's own destination, or, on an order split across several destinations, into the destination each item was ordered for - and never opens the card.

Nothing gets typed on this path, so Stockroom asks you to confirm first - and the dialog says exactly what is about to happen:

Because nothing was counted line by line, this path cannot tell you a delivery came up short. If something did not turn up, undo the receipt afterwards and receive again with counts - see Undo a receipt below. This path also always dates the receipt today - to date a delivery in the past, use Receive & count, where the Received date field lives.

Nothing special to set up - just repeat the flow as each delivery arrives. The Status column keeps score, Max counts always fills with whatever is still outstanding, and each delivery can go to a different location if needed. When the last item is received, the PO moves to Received automatically.

The dates land on your exports too - useful for matching deliveries back to supplier invoices. Once an order has received items, Export CSV on the order adds a Received dates column listing the day each line arrived, one date per delivery. For a per-delivery view across orders - each receipt with its invoice number and landed costs - use Received lines with landed costs (CSV) under Export options on the Purchase orders page. And when printing or downloading the PDF, tick Show received status in PDF options to add Received and Remaining columns - your copy only, never the supplier's.

Suppliers short-ship. When you know the remaining items will never arrive, you have two ways to settle the order - both remove the missing units from the order's totals and stop them showing as incoming in Shopify:

Stockroom also asks at the natural moment: when a delivery leaves items outstanding, an Items still on backorder prompt offers Keep open (another delivery is coming) or Close order (the supplier won't ship the rest).

Cancel remaining can't be undone - if the items do arrive later, add the product back with Add items and receive it. Close is different: a closed order can be reopened, and what closing took off comes back with it. And if MyWorks Sync is connected, the reduced quantities sync to QuickBooks automatically.

Some stores take deliveries in as a Shopify transfer rather than receiving them against the purchase order here. That adds the stock in Shopify, but the purchase order stays open - so its units keep showing as incoming in Shopify for a delivery that already arrived, and Shopify gives you no way to edit incoming from the admin.

Stockroom watches for this. When a Shopify transfer receives items from an open order at the same location, the order shows Items on this order were received in Shopify, names the transfer with the units it took in and the date, and links to it with View transfer. If that covers everything the order still had outstanding, the notice also offers Close order, which takes those units back out of Shopify's incoming stock. If only some of the items arrived that way, the notice tells you what it found and leaves the order alone - a delivery that is still coming should not be cancelled.

Closing an order this way records no receipt in Stockroom, so that delivery's costs live in Shopify only. If you want landed cost and cost of goods tracked here, receive against the purchase order in Stockroom instead of creating a transfer for it.

Closed an order by accident, or need it back? Open it and choose More actions → Reopen. The order goes back to where receiving left off - Received, Partial, On the way or Ordered, depending on what had arrived - so you can receive against it again. Whatever was still unreceived when you closed it goes back on the order and shows as incoming stock in Shopify again; the confirmation tells you how many units that is before you commit, and the reopen is recorded in the order's History card.

Two things worth knowing:

Reopening is also the way in when a receipt on a closed order needs undoing: reopen the order first, then use Undo on the receipt.

Every receipt in the PO's History card has an Edit date button - useful when you're entering past deliveries after the fact, or a receipt was recorded on the wrong day. Pick the correct date and save: your reports and cost history follow the new date, and your inventory and recorded costs are not touched.

A few details:

Supplier invoices often arrive after the goods. When one prices a delivery differently from what you recorded, you can correct that delivery on its own - the rest of the order is left alone.

There are two ways in:

The dialog lists what that delivery brought in, with an editable Unit cost per line. A running Delivery total sits underneath, and if you recorded an invoice total when you received it, the Difference tells you how far off you still are - so you can type until it reaches zero.

Saving updates that delivery's costs, its landed cost, and your cost history - dated to the day the goods actually arrived, so your reports don't move. If the correction changes a product's average cost, the same Update costs and prices? dialog appears, and nothing reaches Shopify unless you tick it.

A few things worth knowing:

Received the wrong quantities, or confirmed costs that don't match the invoice? Every receipt in the PO's History card has an Undo button. Undoing voids the receipt: received quantities reverse, the order steps back to Ordered or Partial, and the Shopify inventory move is reversed in the background - so you can receive again right away with the correct numbers.

Undoing everything to re-edit the order? More actions → Revert to draft undoes every receive and reopens the order as an editable draft in one step - the confirmation spells out what will happen before anything changes.

The voided receipt stays in History marked Undone, and the undo itself appears as its own row with who did it, so your records stay complete. A few limits:

Undoing a receipt is for a delivery that was recorded wrongly - it rewrites your records as though it never happened that way. When the goods genuinely arrived and now have to go back, that is a supplier return: its own document, which ships the stock out of Shopify under a reason and tracks the credit your supplier owes you. On a purchase order with a recorded receipt, More actions and Create return starts one prefilled with what arrived. See Return stock to a supplier.

On a purchase order that ships straight to your customer (a Ships to customer badge sits next to its status), the two buttons read Mark as delivered and Mark all delivered instead. The card works exactly the same - quantities, costs, partial deliveries - but there's no location picker and your Shopify inventory never changes: the goods went to your customer, not to you. When everything's in, the order's status reads Delivered. See Dropship purchase orders: ship straight to your customer.