Update SKUs on existing orders without canceling or refunding

[ssh5]

Currently, my company has been fulfilling orders based on shipping windows. Customers purchase the same product, but by which month it will be shipped to them. To help manage this, we created the product with monthly variants - each with the product's SKU, but with separate months tacked on. Example: "SKU" becomes "SKU-JAN", "SKU-FEB", "SKU-MAR", etc. Our current warehouse uses ShipEdge as the software, which has a feature that will take the SKU from Shopify & convert it to another based on pre-defined sets that we can manage. Example: "SKU-JAN" is converted back to "SKU", enabling the warehouse to scan a unit successfully.

Our new warehouse uses Logiwa, which doesn't seem to have a similar feature. Long term we're moving away from these variant SKUs, but in the meantime, this means we need to update something on the Shopify side.

We've come up with two potential ways forward:

1. Update the variants to use the actual SKU instead of the modified, monthly SKU. It's the same product, so there's no reason this will mess up our data/inventory.
2. Add the UPC code (not sure why, but we haven't had this field filled out thus far).

First, is either/both option viable?

Second, this will only solve for new orders. How can I fix the SKU and/or UPC for orders that already exist without canceling & replacing them?

*Important to note that nothing in the price, shipping window, product variant name, or any other detail that impacts the customer's experience would change. It's the exact same product they ordered, we're just updating how the information is communicated between us and the warehouse.

[ssh5 · Accepted solution]

Quick update, adding the UPC worked! Didn't need to to change any SKU on the product variant or on existing orders.

[aaronalex19]

Hey! Did updating the UPC solve the issue for existing orders as well?