Partial receiving on Shopify: how to handle short shipments without faking a receipt

Almost no delivery from a small supplier matches the purchase order. Two cases are back-ordered, one colour is substituted, the rest turns up next week. If your PO tool can only be received in full, staff end up doing one of two bad things: receiving everything and letting the shelf quantity drift from reality, or holding the whole delivery off the floor until the last box arrives.

What a good partial receipt does

• Lets you enter received quantity per line, defaulting to what is still outstanding, with the ability to over-receive if the supplier sent extra.
• Keeps the remainder on order, so the PO shows 6/13 received rather than closing.
• Writes only the received quantity to Shopify, with a reason of received and a reference to the receipt, so the product's inventory history reads correctly.
• Updates unit cost from the invoice line, and keeps the previous cost so you can see how it moved.
• Prints labels for just the units in this receipt, not the whole PO.
• Can be undone as a unit if a box was scanned to the wrong PO.

The workflow in Restock Ops

Open the PO, choose Receive, and the app pre-fills each line with the outstanding quantity. Change the lines that were short, add the invoice number and whether it is paid, then check the preview: it lists every variant with the quantity and cost change that will be written to Shopify. Confirm, and the receipt is applied, logged under Settings → Shopify write log, and available for labels. The PO status moves to Partially received and stays open for the next delivery.

Because the write goes through Shopify's own inventory adjustment with a receipt reference, you can also see it in Shopify's inventory history for the product, alongside sales and manual edits.

Tips

• Receive against the delivery note, not the invoice; invoices often arrive later and cover several deliveries.
• If a supplier substitutes a variant, add it as a new line on the PO before receiving so cost history lands on the right item.
• Set the PO's expected date when the supplier confirms the back-order date; the reorder report uses incoming quantities so you do not reorder what is already coming.