Is anyone else experiencing that the “upgraded” Shopify interface does not have a facility to record the Reason for a manual stock adjustment? I spent nearly an hour in a “live chat” this morning with Shopify Support - during the conversation it was confirmed that Shopify made their new interface live without the ability to do this. Correct reporting of stock movement is a legal and tax requirement for us, and a safety requirement for my staff (to show what they’ve done and why).
Apparently from my complaint this morning it’s now been flagged as a “Critical Compliance Blocker”, but the support person said: “The more merchants who highlight this as a legal compliance blocker, the more it will be prioritized for a fix.”
If anyone else is upset about the sudden inability to correctly record the reasons for Stock Adjustments please make a complaint so this moves higher up the priority chain for urgent resolution.
This is a real problem, especially for businesses that need an audit trail for tax or safety reasons. Removing the reason field without a replacement is a pretty big oversight.
Until they fix it, one workaround I’ve seen is keeping a simple spreadsheet alongside your adjustments. Date, SKU, quantity changed, reason. Not ideal but at least you have a paper trail if anyone asks.
There are also a few inventory management apps on the Shopify App Store that let you log adjustment reasons and export reports. Might be worth looking into if you need something more structured than a spreadsheet.
Good that support flagged it as a compliance blocker though. Have you also submitted it through the Shopify feedback form? That sometimes gets more traction than just live chat.
Hey, thanks for your response. Yes, a spreadsheet is a good idea, but all that extra work, for crying out loud!!
I haven’t submitted feedback through Shopify; frankly, I don’t find the “Shopify Support” opportunities user-friendly. I don’t actually think they care one way or the other. In the good old days the feedback was taken more seriously, and customer support was pretty good. Now they seem big enough to do whatever they want, which is too bad for their end user!
Hey ho… when I get another spare couple of hours I’ll go hunting for that one!
Shopify tracks inventory adjustment history at the product level — go to Products > [product] > Inventory > Adjustment history to see changes with timestamps and reasons. That said, it’s fairly basic and doesn’t generate the kind of formal audit trail most accountants or tax authorities want.
For proper documentation, I’d export inventory snapshots regularly via Settings > Data and files > Export and keep those alongside any manual adjustment logs. If you need detailed reason codes, cost-of-goods tracking on adjustments, or formal write-off reports, you’ll want to look at an inventory management app that supports audit-ready reporting.
Thanks for that - this is exactly what I’m talking about. They used to offer a dropdown that gave you the option to insert a reason from a (very limited) choice of options - eg Received, Damage/Theft, Count etc. But as part of the new interface this is no longer offered, which Shopify Support specifically verified for me. The person I spoke to confirmed they forgot to include it. Therefore, the only current facility is to adjust the number up or down, but no ability to record the reason for the adjustment.
A ridiculous “oversight” - what merchant doesn’t need to hold that information for legal and tax purposes? What merchant doesn’t need their employees to be able to record this information? It’s poor at best, and in my view actually quite negligent. Compliance requirements are an absolute basic.
Hey @Silkbody-2 big ups to you for bringing up the matter in this way and getting more merchants involved in it, the few times I’ve seen someone start a movement like this for good cause the matter does in fact end up getting prioritized and fixed so hopefully that will be the case here as well.
What’s also really annoying is that you can’t use the Unavailable Inventory functions either. I had just started using Unavailable to track safety stock and now none of those features are working. I hope the Product Manager and QA team who let this oversight go out are in some really hot water right now.
As a Shopify Partner, the admin update now locks audit fields, but you can be compliant by running stock adjustments through Shopify Flow with a required reason prompt captured in order or inventory metafields. Several merchants are switching to inventory systems such as Cin7 or Stocky substitutes for complete audit trails logging.
Sure, but why should we have to switch or do anything different? The status quo wasn’t perfect - the reasons for stock movement were too limited, and should have included an option for “Other” with the ability to enter the reason manually - but it was better than the absolute nothing available now.
Why would Shopify remove functionality? It’s poor business practice, and forcing users to add yet another App or plug-in is inappropriate. As a very small business we don’t require (and cannot afford) a complex inventory system, but we do require the - very limited - functionality that had always been available.
Which report/s are you referring to? Do they show the reason for the adjustment or just the adjustment?
The thing I’m talking about is that we can no longer put a reason for the adjustment
Before, when we remove inventory from the inventory section for example if it is damage. it will give us the option for the reason like my images above. Damged/thief or loss/ etc. now it doesn’t.
Now its moving “damage”, “other” to “unavailable”. whats the point of that lol.
I just looked at our store… can confirm - reasons are now gone. Did they simply get moved? If so, is that new location in line? I’m surprised.
I don’t know what’s going on with these changes, but we (FyreTrail) have ZERO plans on removing adjustment reasons. You will still be able to create adjustments - with reasons - who did it, when they did it, why they did it and how much of a monetary impact it was (both cost and price). All of the detail you need AND for the time-range you want it for.
