How to track inventory for made to order products with multiple variants

Shopify Discussion
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Topic summary

Problem: Made-to-order variants (1g, 2g, 3g, up to 28g) draw from a single bulk stock (e.g., 100g) with separate SKUs. QuickBooks Connector won’t record COGS (cost of goods sold) for non-inventory items; making variants inventoried in QuickBooks can zero out Shopify stock. Single-SKU with quantity discounts was considered, but packaging changes COGS by size.

Proposed solutions:

  • Bundle-based splitting: Bundle variants to a base SKU and split into components after purchase. Caveats: processing occurs post-sale and may conflict if the accounting connector imports orders first; relies on smallest-unit multiplication; limited direct QuickBooks support.
  • CartSpan integration: Use a lookup table with conversion factors so multi-pack/variant items in Shopify map to a single QuickBooks item. Keeps Shopify stock synced from QuickBooks; variants don’t need to exist as items in QuickBooks.
  • PackLabelShip workflow: Keep bulk item inventoried; after order and before integrations run, auto-add the correct grams of bulk plus the appropriate bottle. Use a metafield to tie bottle variants to bulk stock and theme updates for out-of-stock; separate COGS for bulk vs. packaging. Includes a short demo video.

Status: OP says they adopted another solution earlier but did not share details. Another participant asked for the chosen solution; no resolution provided; discussion remains open.

Summarized with AI on December 30. AI used: gpt-5.
7

Yeah so the order is split after sale as the bundle components are not displayed in checkout.

We actually do some accounting integrations so the guys have some experience in data flows but no Quickbooks unfortunately. The bundling up items is probably the easy part the issue comes with how to manage orders into Quickbooks and then inventory levels of these bundles.

You can email me at tom@channelup.io and we can schedule a chat. Keep in mind we are in Brisbane Australia so time zone issues!