- Short answer
- A Shopify purchase order records the supplier agreement; an inventory transfer moves and receives the stock — you can link them, or transfer alone.
- When a transfer can come from a purchase order
- After the purchase order is marked Ordered; you create the transfer yourself.
- What a linked transfer inherits
- It sets your supplier as the origin and includes the line items from the purchase order.
- Once a purchase order is Ordered
- Irreversible; it can't be deleted, only archived — which doesn't close or cancel the linked transfer.
- Unlinking the two
- Undoes no receiving or cost adjustments and deletes neither the transfer nor the purchase order.
- A purchase order is not required
- A standalone transfer can set a supplier as the origin, or leave the origin location blank.
- Supplier cost reporting
- All three default purchase order reports in Shopify Analytics need a purchase order; a standalone transfer appears in none.
- Moves inside your own store
- Transfers also move stock between your store locations — no supplier, and no agreement for a purchase order to record.
- Since Stocky ended
- Stocky is no longer available as of August 31, 2026; both objects are native to the Shopify admin.
- As of
- Help Center pages read September 5, 2026; the purchase order reports page, October 18, 2026.
What is a Shopify purchase order, and what is a transfer?
A purchase order is the commercial record. Shopify says it "lists the products, quantities, costs, payment terms, and supplier details for an order."
An inventory transfer is the movement itself, and Shopify documents it as moving and tracking inventory "between your store locations, or to and from external locations such as suppliers." That is the split:
The purchase order records the commercial agreement, and the linked inventory transfer handles shipments, receiving, and cost adjustments in your Shopify admin.
Do you need both for one restock?
You don't always need both, but a supplier restock can use them in sequence. After a purchase order is marked Ordered, you can create an inventory transfer from it to track the shipment and receive the stock. That status can't be reversed, and an Ordered purchase order can't be deleted, only archived.
A transfer created from a purchase order sets your supplier as the origin and includes the line items from that purchase order. Creating the transfer that way links the two records, and you can unlink them later — what unlinking leaves in place.
Shopify documents the other path too: a standalone transfer can set a supplier as the origin — or leave the origin location blank.
Which path should a supplier restock take?
Pick the path by what you need to see after the stock arrives. Where purchase order analytics is available to your store, Shopify Analytics has three default purchase order reports — Purchase order costs, Purchase order transfers and Purchases on order — and all three are built on purchase orders, so a restock without one never shows up in them:
| Supplier restock path | Purchase order cost report | Purchase order transfer report | Purchases on order | Ordered vs received report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase order, then a transfer created from it | Yes | Yes | While Ordered and open, with no linked transfer | Yes |
| Standalone transfer, supplier as origin | No — no purchase order to group | No | No | Yes |
| Standalone transfer, blank origin | No — no purchase order to group | No | No | Yes |
If you need a supplier- and SKU-level cost breakdown, use a purchase order and create the transfer from it. The purchase order cost report groups supplier cost, tax and average unit cost by purchase order, supplier, destination location and line item.
A standalone transfer can still carry shipping, customs duties and other fees as shipment cost adjustments; what it lacks is the agreed cost on a purchase order, which a linked transfer's Cost summary lets you compare with what receiving actually cost.
Whichever path you take, Shopify's guide reconciles against a supplier invoice outside Shopify. A custom ordered-vs-received report on the Inventory transfers data source shows ordered and received quantities, and Shopify's guide has you export it to CSV and multiply received quantities by your invoice prices. Say you order 200 units and 180 arrive at an invoice price of $4.50: you check the supplier's bill against 180 × $4.50 = $810, not the $900 the full order would come to.
If your purchase orders already live in an ERP, skip the Shopify purchase order. Shopify's guide has you keep the ERP as the source of truth: the ERP creates a blank-origin incoming transfer through the Transfers API, and you put the ERP's purchase order ID in its Reference number field. Shopify says that setup "avoids duplicate financial documents in your Shopify admin."
Starting standalone with the supplier as origin doesn't lock you out: an existing transfer can be linked to a purchase order later, but the transfer must have the same supplier as its origin, and a purchase order holds only one linked transfer at a time. A blank-origin transfer doesn't meet that condition, and once a transfer is processed, its origin and destination can't be changed.
Neither path re-costs the product — a variant's Cost per item stays fixed when you receive either one, as cost adjustments on a transfer explains.
Can you delete a purchase order once it is ordered?
No — archive it instead. Shopify lets you delete a purchase order only while it's still a draft, and marking it as ordered can't be reversed.
To archive, open the purchase order, click More actions, then Archive; it stays on your purchase orders list, grayed out, and the same steps with Unarchive bring it back.
Archiving a purchase order doesn't close or cancel the linked inventory transfer. If the transfer itself has to stop, a whole transfer can be canceled while it is in Draft or Ready to ship.
If the order is real but its details are wrong, edit it rather than archive it: most purchase order information stays editable after it's marked Ordered, including products, costs and supplier details. The exception Shopify names is the linked transfer, which can't have its origin or destination changed after it reaches Ready to ship.
What happens if you unlink a purchase order?
Unlinking doesn't undo any receiving or cost adjustments, and it doesn't delete the inventory transfer or the purchase order. You can unlink from either side, and the event is captured in the timeline on both records.
One case for unlinking is a purchase order linked to the wrong transfer. Each purchase order supports one linked inventory transfer at a time, so while the wrong link stands, the right transfer can't be linked to that purchase order.
Unlinking is not a reset. To correct what you received, edit the accepted, rejected or canceled quantities in the received shipment instead.
What about a move with no supplier — and what is native now?
When stock moves between two of your own store locations, a transfer is the whole answer: there is no supplier in that move, and supplier details are part of what a purchase order lists.
Purchase orders and transfers are both native to the Shopify admin. Stocky is no longer available as of August 31, 2026, and Shopify's transition page names "Move inventory across locations with transfers" and "Track and receive purchase orders from suppliers" among the tasks you need to complete there instead. Location limits and wider restock planning sit in our multi-location inventory guide.
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