Shopify purchase order reports: check incoming stock

Shopify has added three purchase order reports to Analytics, giving merchants a clearer way to review incoming inventory and purchasing costs. The 6 October announcement also confirms data export and new metrics on the Purchase Orders page.

Which report answers your question?

• Purchase order costs: ordered items and quantities, supplier costs, estimated taxes and purchase order costs.
• Purchase order transfers: purchase orders followed through transfers, shipments and receiving.
• Purchases on order: open, ordered purchase orders without linked transfers.

The Purchase Orders page adds measures including total items ordered, acceptance rate and shipments due soon. These are useful starting points for a restock review, rather than a guarantee that an order will arrive on time.

Check the report definitions

Shopify’s documentation describes these reports as available where purchase order analytics is enabled for the store. Cost and on-order reports use purchase order line items; the transfers report uses linked shipment line items. One multi-product purchase order can therefore occupy several rows.

Date selection matters too: cost and on-order reports use line-item creation dates, while the transfers report uses shipment creation dates. A matching date range can still describe different activity.

Purchase order cost includes ordered-unit value and estimated tax. Treat that definition carefully: it does not establish a complete landed-cost calculation or confirm an automatic update to each product’s cost field.

A practical restock review

Start with one supplier and one receiving location. Compare the open order, shipment and receiving records for a product you intend to promote. If they disagree, ask the purchasing or warehouse team to explain the gap before increasing the offer’s stock allocation.

Keep a short exception list: an order without a transfer, a shipment expected after your campaign begins, or a quantity that has not been accepted. Assign each exception to someone who can resolve it. This turns a report review into decisions about stock and timing.

For cost checks, reconcile a sample line with the supplier invoice and confirm the report’s currency treatment in your own store before combining totals. Reporting is most useful when the team agrees what each number represents.

For the receiving side of the restock plan, see our guide to Shopify POS stock counts and staff permissions.