Auto-Populate Cost When Creating a Purchase Order?

[SCC]

We’ve just recently started using Purchase Orders. The “cost” data element is present; however, it does not auto-populate from the Product “Cost”. We contacted the online support team via chat only to learn we must manually enter (or re-enter to be more precise) the cost. Where do we find the cost to enter it manually? Why from the product where we diligently entered the product’s cost. This makes no sense to us - if there is a use case that supports NOT auto-populating cost when creating a Purchase Order, we’d love to hear it. Are we the only ones that have encourntered this?

[dev0506]

Hello @SCC

Hope you are doing well

In Shopify, there isn’t a built-in feature to automatically populate the cost when creating a purchase order. The cost of products or items is typically entered manually by the store owner or the person responsible for managing inventory.

However you can use plugins like Thrive or Stocky

Hope this solves your issue .

[SCC]

This functionality shouldn’t require a “feature” - that’s the point of my original post. I’ve already entered the product cost manually in the product record - the cost is readily available to leverage when creating a purchase order. Having to continually re-enter redundant cost data is inconsistent with basic database architecture and suggests Shopify views product data and purchase order data as separate silos. This is a very simple data mapping exercise - the most junior Shopify coder could complete this take in less time than it has taken me to type this comment and shouldn’t require a third party app or spreadsheet kung fu.

[ad8on]

We share your concern @SCC .

We’ve finally tightened up our options and got all of our products meticulously entered in Shopify. We use the AirPower plugin to manage tons of products and have them synced/added/updated to Shopify. We’ve started filling in all our “Cost” fields.

And now we’ve started using “Purchase Orders” instead of manually sending an email or some siloed excel sheet, with our purchase order requests. This really makes the process nice, especially when it comes to Receiving inventory from a PO, when it arrives.

But I also can’t think of a situation in which a person would create a PO and NOT want to have the cost of the inividiual items pre-populated. This should be the standard… and if they want/need to change the cost, they could do a manual override.

But it’s just silly that we need to open another tab to go look at each product and find the COST that we’ve already meticulously entered… that’s sitting in another Shopify field, that you could and should easily link/populate from the field we’ve already filled out.

Can you imagine an e-commerce shopping UX where a person adds a product to their cart… and when they get to the cart page, they have to add a “1” for quantity?? They’ve already specified they want the product, by adding it to their cart, right?! Why make them specify that they want one, again!?

When we add an item to a Purchase order, we want one… for sure!! And if the shop owner actually took the time to enter the COST of their products, then that’s likely the cost of each individual item they’re ordering in the PO… if not… let them adjust… but the default COST should definitly be the COST field from the individual product page.

@SCC , As simple as it would seem to implement a feature like this… my guess is that since it’s not a bug, it will be brushed aside. It’s really just an oversight, imo.

[SCC]

I agree 110% with everything you said. Unfortunately, I’m guessing most/all of the Shopify designers and architects lack any real-world experience actually using Shopify to run an actual business. It’s too bad Shopify doesn’t have some of their actual users involved with design and enhancements - the result would be an even better product.

[Susdawursk]

OMG I just meticulously entered 57 very long POs with over 300 SKUS to find out these costs (and the discounts applied in the PO) don’t transfer to the Cost of Goods field in the product I AM FIT TO BE TIED. This is such a not hard feature to code and I am now going to spend all day and more money scouring the app store finding a solution. Does anyone at Shopify even read this? I’m noticing comments and threads in the community about this that date back to 2021. Losing my mind.

[artekenergy]

Shopify: Please consider having cost column auto-populate in Purchase Orders from existing cost data on product pages. This should be a native function and is available on every other bookkeeping software: Quickbooks, Zoho, etc.

Hi SCC,

I am adding our shared experience in hopes that the more users who complain about this absurdly embarrassing lack of oversight on Shopify’s part, that perhaps it will be brought to the attention of their development team and added as a basic function. The cost in a PO should auto-populate. When I submit a PO to a manufacturer or other distributor, I am required to included cost in that PO. Because this does not auto-populate from the cost that is available on every product page, I have to leave the draft PO, open up a second window and copy and paste the cost THAT IS ALREADY PRESENT ON SHOPIFY into the cost column of the PO. This pretty much triples the time it takes me to create a PO. Very inefficient. Prior to having an online store, we used Quickbooks for our invoicing and POs. Even if i went back to Quickbooks, I would still need to manually copy that PO over to Shopify to then mark the PO as received so that our inventory stayed accurate. Infuriating.

[Mellissa]

Thank you for starting this thread. This is also something that we are just realizing since transferring over to Shopify POS. This feature is so basic, I don’t understand why they are unwilling to add this very simple feature. This and the fact that you can’t print barcodes straight from the purchase order and must also manually add each item to the barcode generator, makes using Shopify instead of our old POS, so much more time consuming. We thought moving over to Shopify would speed things up, not slow us down. So frustrating!

[Mellissa]

That is something we literally discuss all the time. They did not get any advice from people that use online and in store POS systems. All of the functions that are lacking in Shopify are so simple and a basic feature in POS systems that have been around for years. You absolutely should not have to plug in a third party app just have simple features or run basic reports.

[Bougsie]

I just discovered this having assumed that it would auto populate - Basic!!!

I wonder if these omissions are deliberate so they can then develop an app which you then have to use (at a cost)?

Like you said - SO frustrating!!

[Jkelly21]

Well said SCC. For software of Shopify’s caliber, it’s absolutely mystifying how many things defy ‘basic database architecture.’ Another example is the inability to ‘Print Labels from PO.’ Instead you have to re-enter all items manually! Was hopeful the mass migration of Quickbooks POS customers last fall would have prompted Shopify to address some of these basic functionality issues - but nothing. Plenty of feedback here on the forum yet no material action taken. Easy to draw the conclusion that these oversights and omissions are ‘by design’ and intended to push customers into add ons

[C_Willhoff]

This is ridiculous that the cost info can’t be pushed over. And even more ridiculous that it’s taking so long to have this happen after so many customers realize it’s an issue. It would seem to be a very simple fix for them to make.

[SCC]

If the responses to this thread are any indication, many more businesses would benefit from auto-populating than not. Besides, in the scenario you describe, you would have to enter the cost whether it was auto-populated or not - there is no additional effort required. Better yet, why not let the individual Shopify store owner decide what works best for them? When creating a new Purchase Order, a simple checkbox (“Auto-populate Cost”) letting the store owner decide if they want to auto-populate cost or not would make everyone happy. Again, this is a very straightforward programming task that even the most junior coder could complete easily.

[TheLocalVT]

Replying here in hopes that Shopify will address this. Seems like such an easy fix!

[mxjrdn]

Agreed. This is a glaring oversight. At least a little button that says “autofill from product cost” would go a very long way.

Same issue and fix for the SKU field as well. I use all of my supplier’s SKUs. Why can I not autofill those either?

[SCSP]

Today I had the misfortune of realizing that after meticulously importing and curating my inventory, with SKU, price, cost, etc., that the cost does not auto-populate on my 218 item order. Incredible. Same level of incompetency as QuickBooks. The software has the data needed, but refuses to allow you to utilize it. Asinine.

[antron]

Any progress or options on this? It is incredible to me a platform as big as Shopify and minor things like this aren’t implemented or even an app that can hell with this function. Is it really this difficult to find something that will take the purchase order cost data and average it for a true product cost?

I’m am shocked something this simple is not possible in Shopify or even an app.

[antron]

Any progress or options on this? It is incredible to me a platform as big as Shopify and minor things like this aren’t implemented or even an app that can hell with this function. Is it really this difficult to find something that will take the purchase order cost data and average it for a true product cost?

I’m am shocked something this simple is not possible in Shopify or even an app. Please help!!

[critterpet]

My workaround for this so far has been to split my screen between my purchase order page and my product page in shopify, and just copy/paste the title or Product Code from the PO into the product page to see the costs per item. Annoying but a little more efficient.

[CCCDigital]

Problem solved! Check our our brand new app **Procuro.
**
It has all the features of traditional Purchase Orders but also allows you to auto-update costs through any of these 3 methods;

1. Weighted Average Cost (Takes Value of Old Stock and New Stock, averages it out)
2. FIFO Cost Updates, First in First Out your costs and auto update them to the new cost when old stock sells out.
3. Simple Replacement. Just replace all the old costs of products in the PO with the new costs.

We also have built in currency conversion so you can easily create PO’s based on your suppliers invoice currency and then conver currency while using one of the methods above.

And because we were building all of this, we also added in the ability to track costs for specific products and/or suppliers over time, and calculate inventory values.

What’s next? We’re almost done with a feature that will let you skip the creation entirely, just upload your supplier invoice, it will auto map products, ask for a review, do your cost adjustments and done.

Check it out on the app store.