When you create an inventory transfer directly from a Purchase Order in Shopify, most of the PO data migrates over — supplier, destination, line items, etc. However, the Reference Number is left blank on the new transfer.
The Reference Number is how many merchants match their internal PO labeling to their vendor’s order numbering system. When a transfer is created from that PO, the reference number should follow it automatically.
Expected behavior: When generating a transfer from a PO, the Reference Number should automatically populate in the transfer record.
Current behavior: The Reference Number field is blank on the newly created transfer, requiring manual re-entry.
The transfer is a direct child of the PO — it should inherit its identifying information. This seems like a straightforward improvement with no obvious downside to the current default.
I agree with you. If a transfer is created directly from a purchase order, the reference number should carry over together with the supplier, destination location, and products. The field could remain editable for exceptions. At the moment, it has to be entered again, which only creates extra work and increases the risk of mismatched records. That really should not be necessary
I agree this would be a useful improvement. Since the inventory transfer is created directly from the Purchase order, it makes sense for key metadata, especially the Reference Number to carry over automatically.
Having manually re-enter the reference number adds unnecessary work and increase the risk inconsistencies between the PO and its related transfer, particularly for merchants processing a high volume of purchase orders.
At the moment, I don’t believe Shopify supports automatically copying the PO Reference Number into the transfer record. I’d recommend submitting this as a feature request through Shopify Support or the Shopify Community, as it’s a logical enhancement that could benefit many merchants managing inventory workflows.
Since the transfer is created directly from the Purchase Order, the Reference Number should automatically inherit from the PO.
Re-entering it manually is unnecessary, increases the risk of errors, and breaks traceability. Auto-populating this field would make the workflow much more efficient with no downside.
Hey there @balarid2002
I agree this would make for a much better flow. Because the transfer is generated from the purchase order, bringing over the Reference Number would help keep things uniform and cut down on manual entry. As a temporary solution, some merchants add the PO number to the transfer notes, or use a naming convention across the transfers until the transfer is done. It would be better if the Reference Number was automatically inherited for tracebility purpose without impacting current workflows.