Unlock Shopify Flow's Potential: Tracking Incoming Inventory & Purchase Orders

Shopify Flow: Power Tool with a Few Missing Pieces

Shopify Flow is a fantastic tool for automating tasks in your store, but sometimes you hit a wall. Recently, in the Shopify Community, a user named BDEDDY brought up a really good point about limitations when it comes to incoming inventory and purchase orders. Let's dive into what they discovered and how it impacts store owners like us.

The Core Issue: Accessing Incoming Inventory and PO Data

BDEDDY wanted to use Flow to report on incoming products – specifically, when the 'Inventory Incoming' quantity is greater than zero. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, it's not. As Sidekick (presumably a support resource) pointed out, Shopify Flow can't directly access "incoming" inventory quantities for reporting and automation. This is a bummer because that data does exist within Shopify's Admin API, accessible via inventoryLevels.quantities.

The problem is that Flow's "Get product data" task only shows the total inventory (current stock), not the detailed breakdown that includes "incoming," "committed," and "reserved" quantities. This makes it impossible to create automated reports for products with incoming stock from purchase orders. Imagine how useful a daily report of products with incoming inventory, sorted by purchase order and vendor, would be!

The Purchase Order Data Black Hole

Things get even trickier when you factor in purchase order (PO) data. BDEDDY's original intent was to get incoming stock information sorted by PO. However, Sidekick confirmed a harsh reality: purchase order data is essentially inaccessible through the Shopify Admin API. There are no API queries for:

• Purchase orders
• PO numbers
• Supplier information (beyond the basic "vendor" field on products)
• Expected delivery dates
• Incoming stock quantities from POs

So, while the "incoming" inventory quantity is technically available in the API, there's no way to link it to a specific purchase order. It's like having a pile of puzzle pieces without the picture on the box.

What's Available, and What's Not?

To recap, here's what the Shopify API *does* offer:

• The "incoming" inventory quantity
• The product vendor field (which is just a text field)

And here's what's missing in action:

• Purchase order numbers
• Purchase order line items
• Supplier details
• Any way to link incoming inventory to specific purchase orders

In essence, we have incoming inventory data floating around, but no anchor to tie it to the relevant purchase order. As BDEDDY clearly summarizes:

1. Incoming inventory quantities exist in Shopify’s system and are accessible via the API
2. Purchase order data does NOT exist in the API - it’s only available in the Shopify admin UI
3. Shopify Flow cannot access either
   • it can’t see incoming quantities OR purchase"

Workarounds and Feature Requests

So, what can you do in the meantime? While a perfect solution isn't available, here are a few potential workarounds, depending on your needs:

• Manual Reporting: The most basic approach is to manually pull the data from the Shopify admin and create your own reports. This is time-consuming, but it gives you complete control.
• Third-Party Apps: Explore apps in the Shopify App Store that specialize in inventory management and purchase order tracking. Some of these apps might offer integrations with Shopify Flow or provide their own automation capabilities.
• Custom App Development: If you have the technical expertise (or can hire a developer), you could build a custom app that pulls data from the Shopify API and potentially combines it with data from other sources (like a separate accounting system) to create the reports you need.
• Feature Request: As BDEDDY suggested, submit a feature request to Shopify asking them to add support for inventory quantity details and purchase order data to Flow's product data tasks. The more merchants who request this feature, the more likely Shopify is to prioritize it.

It's clear that while Shopify Flow is a powerful tool, it has limitations when it comes to accessing detailed inventory and purchase order data. Hopefully, Shopify will address these gaps in the future, but in the meantime, we need to be creative and find workarounds that meet our specific business needs. It's all about understanding the constraints and finding the best way to navigate them. And who knows, maybe your feature request will be the one that finally unlocks the full potential of Flow for inventory management!