How can I track manual inventory adjustments in my online store?

[ConnorB1]

Sometimes we have to make manual inventory adjustments for various reasons on our Shopify store. This can be due to moving inventory between warehouses or selling a product through a different avenue than our online store. This happens after due to the nature of our business. However, there is no place to make a note of why an inventory adjustment was made. For example, I would like an area to write a memo under a manual inventory adjustment like "moved from warehouse 1 to warehouse 2 for restock." This would be extremely helpful and seemingly simple to implement but we are having to track this in a Google Sheet currently and it is not a great method. If anyone has an app suggestion, that would be greatly appreciated. 

[ilrein]

Sounds like a very reasonable request. I will poke around my store and see if I can figure something out.

[ilrein]

Seems like it exists 

https://admin.shopify.com/store/<STORE_NAME>/products/inventory/<INVENTORY_ID>/inventory_history?loc...

When you make an inventory adjustment there is a dropdown that has a few options for "why". Best I can imagine is an extensions app that would increase the options, let me know if you need that.

[ConnorB1]

Yes, what I would like is a text box option where I can type what kind of inventory adjustment I am doing or I would like to add multiple extra options for very common inventory adjustments that I make. For example, I move inventory from a warehouse called DFI to our HQ quite often so I would like an option to say "DFI to HQ." Thank you for your help so far. I look forward to hearing back form you.

[ilrein]

I looked into it a bit more. One challenge is that the Shopify API only allows for 6 different options for "reasons".

I was tinkering a bit with creating a metafield on a variant as a way to give full customization, and then adding an app block on the bottom of the page to show the adjustment memos list.

[ConnorB1]

Would you be able to show me what this would look like with a few screenshots?

[ilrein]

Sure, it's not fully done yet, still need to improve it, but the rough idea is to try to use metafields to get around shopify's restricted reasons:

Click More Actions and select the new extension

Then a modal pops up, where you can fill in 3 fields. This is probably not enough, as you most likely need to reference a location id as well. Let me know what you think about that.

 Filled out form with "test reason here"

 

 
then at the bottom of the page there is an "app block" you can pin. This one has no entries on it.

Here's how it looks after adding 4 different memos:

 A little datestamp, the reason, and the variant. 

Probably needs to track the adjustment, the location, and maybe have support for pagination. I was hoping to have it done already but there's lot's of small difficulties.

Anyway, that's the rough approach.

 

[ConnorB1]

Thank you for that info! It all looks really great. My only question is if I will be able to adjust inventory from 3 of my different locations using Metafields or will I have to use the old inventory adjustment method along with this one?

[ConnorB1]

@ilrein Good morning, I appreciate all your great help so far. I just wanted to see if you had gotten a chance to look more into this.

[ilrein]

@ConnorB1apologies for the delay, been busy with life.

It's doable to adjust inventory from any location to another one. It'll require some additional thought for how to map it well. I can send the change without a reason, and then map a metafield over to the ID of the inventory adjustment. You won't see the reason in the normal adjustment history, only the adjustment itself, but the app block would display that text.

[ConnorB1]

@ilrein Okay, thank you! I understand! I would love to be able to be able to implement this. 

[ilrein]

@ConnorB1 

Digging into it a bit more, had a significant thought.

Are you really intending to use this only to memoize transfering inventory between locations? Or do you ever use memos for changing inventory in just a single location?

Because I can see there is no way to directly create a "move". One must decrease from Location A and increase in Location B. I can make the UI do this in one stop, instead of two, but it only makes sense to structure that way if that's the only use case. Then the purpose of the app shifts from "inventory adjustment memos" to "change inventory between locations with a memo".

[ConnorB1]

@ilrein It will be only for decreasing inventory in one location and increasing it in another by moving it between the locations. 

[ConnorB1]

@ilrein Good morning. I hope all is well. I just wanted to follow up on this as we are looking forward to using this as a solution. 

[ConnorB1]

@ilrein Hello. I hope everything is going well. Has there been any update on this solution? I would love to provide any more info that is needed.

[GhostApps · Accepted solution]

Hi, I have developed an app for this use case Inventory History Guardian allows you to track inventory adjustments, store them for more than 90 days, add notes and export them, whilst still using Shopify's native Inventory so you don't get out of sync. You can then see all of your adjustments across your store in one table and export it to CSV.
It's still new so it would be great if you would check it out and let me know what you think and if it meets  your needs

https://apps.shopify.com/inventory-history-guardian 

Thanks

[ConnorB1]

Hello! I have downloaded your app and have been testing it out. It is so much better than the native Shopify inventory adjustments. I enjoy that I can add a memo of the reason I made each adjustment and that I can easily make adjustments all on one page.

I do have one question/suggestion. I think it would be a great addition to be able to move inventory from one location to another within one action instead of two. For example, if I -100 products from Warehouse A and +100 those products to Warehouse B, that takes two steps and there is room for error even if it is minimal. However, it would be ideal if there was an option to just transfer 100 products directly from A to B. 

Please let me know your thoughts or if that is already possible and I am just missing it. 

[GhostApps]

Hey, it's great to hear you're liking the app, we can definitely add that as a feature, I've sent you a DM so I can update you.