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Replenishment

Why incoming stock is missing from your Shopify numbers

Shopify has a field for stock on its way. It sits outside the totals you are most likely to buy from, and the longer your lead time, the more that costs you.

Marcus VolstedCo-founder, Restocio Published 11 September 2026Updated 11 September 20268 min read

Every source on this page was opened and read, and each one is dated in the Sources section at the foot.

Shopify does track incoming inventory, but it keeps it out of both Available and On hand, and the month-end stock value report leaves it out as well. Stock you have usually paid for already is missing from the numbers you are most likely to decide your next order from. With a supplier who delivers in three days, that hardly matters. With 600 units on a boat for 70 days, it is a large share of everything you have.

Where does Shopify put incoming inventory?

On its own tab. Shopify's inventory states page, read on 11 September 2026, defines it as inventory “on its way to your location from transfers, purchase orders, or apps”, and says it “isn't available to sell until it's been received at the location.” You find it on the Incoming tab of the Inventory page.

The next definition down matters more. Available “doesn't include inventory that's considered Incoming”, and On hand is defined as your Committed, Unavailable and Available units added together. Incoming sits outside both. It exists in Shopify, it just never adds into either total.

It also only exists if somebody records it. Units become Incoming through a transfer, a purchase order or an app, so a factory order agreed over email and never entered in the admin has no Incoming quantity at all. The boat is real. Shopify has no record of it.

Why is incoming stock missing from my inventory value?

Because the report only values Available stock. Shopify's inventory reports page, read the same day, describes the ending quantity in the month-end inventory value report as the Available quantity at the end of the period, and adds, “This excludes Incoming and Committed inventory.” The total is that quantity times your cost per item.

So a container at sea is missing from the stock value while its cost has usually left your account already. That is the story in profitable but no cash told from the other end. Whether the goods belong in your accounts yet turns on your purchase terms, which is covered in why your Shopify profit report and your accountant disagree.

How much does the gap matter for your store?

It grows with your lead time. A supplier who delivers in three days only ever leaves one small order off your numbers, for three days. A boat that takes 70 days, plus whatever the factory needs first, leaves a whole order off them for months. The example below uses invented round numbers for a product selling 10 a day.

What goes wrong when you reorder off Available?

You buy stock that is already on its way. Available is the right number for a checkout, because a customer cannot buy a unit that is still at sea. It is the wrong base for a purchase order, because the boat is already carrying part of the answer and nothing in the figure says so.

Most advice on double-ordering, our own replenishment guide included, treats it as someone forgetting a purchase order. On Shopify it happens with nobody forgetting anything. A careful merchant who reads the admin correctly still starts from a quantity that leaves the boat out by definition.

The timing makes it worse. Available is at its lowest just before a delivery lands, which is exactly when Incoming is largest compared with what is on the shelf. The figure looks most alarming at the moment the answer is closest to your door.

Should days of cover include incoming stock?

Only the part that lands before you run out. Days of cover on Available alone understates your position by whatever is on its way, the same hole inventory turnover has for the catalogue, repeated per product. Adding all of Incoming back overstates it, because a unit that lands after the shelf is empty cannot fill the days before it arrived.

Incoming is a question about dates as much as quantities. Take a product with 30 days on the shelf and 600 units due in 45 days. Added together that reads as 90 days of cover. In practice you are out of stock for about 15 days first, and nothing on that boat can change it.

How do you check this in your own store?

With a spreadsheet and about an hour. For each of your ten best sellers, set the days its shelf stock will last beside the date its next delivery lands. Where the shelf runs out first, there is a gap coming that no Shopify figure will show, and its length in days is what a faster shipment would have to cover.

• Collect everything on its way. The Incoming tab shows what was entered as a transfer, purchase order or app. Then check your email for orders that never reached Shopify.
• Work out days on the shelf. Available divided by units sold per day, with the rate counted over the days the product was actually in stock rather than calendar days.
• Use today's arrival date, not the one you typed. A date typed at order time can be weeks out by sailing, so ask your forwarder for the current one.
• Add production for anything not yet shipped. An order still at the factory has its production time ahead of it as well as the voyage.

How does Restocio handle incoming stock?

It subtracts it from the recommendation before it suggests anything. Open purchase orders in Restocio are split by how each one travels, and every unit on them reduces the plan once. An order past its expected date stays counted until you receive or cancel it, because a late boat is late, not gone.

The Ordered label follows the dates. A product only shows as Ordered when its open orders land before the shelf empties and still outlast the order cycle once the last one lands. A boat due three weeks after you run out is a gap, not cover, so the product stays due and the recommendation becomes a faster shipment to bridge it, where you have one switched on.

Counting it once is harder than it sounds. Subtract the same order in two places and the plan quietly under-orders exactly the products with a boat on the way. It took us more than one pass to get right. The rule is now pinned by a test in which 1,600 units already rolling in cut the plan by exactly 1,600.

Where it stops. The days of stock figure on each card is still shelf stock divided by the daily rate, with nothing added for what is on the way, so the arrival gap shows up in the status and the quantity rather than in that number. For the Ordered label, an order with no expected date, or one already overdue, counts as landing today, which is the optimistic reading.

And we can only net what we can see. Restocio counts its own purchase orders, not Shopify's Incoming tab, and a draft does not count. An order agreed with the factory over email is as invisible to us as it is to Shopify until someone enters it once.

Common questions

Why is my incoming inventory not showing in Shopify?

Either it was never entered, or you are looking at Available. Shopify only records units as Incoming when they are part of a transfer, a purchase order or an app, so an order agreed with a factory over email has no Incoming quantity at all. Once recorded, it appears on the Incoming tab of the Inventory page, and it stays out of Available and On hand until it is received.

Does Shopify count incoming inventory as available or on hand?

No to both. Shopify's Help Center says Available does not include inventory considered Incoming, and defines On hand as Committed plus Unavailable plus Available units. After you receive a transfer or purchase order the units move to Available automatically, although an app can place received stock in another state, such as Unavailable for safety stock.

Is stock in transit included in Shopify's inventory value report?

No. The month-end inventory value report multiplies each variant's ending Available quantity by its cost per item, and Shopify states that this ending quantity excludes Incoming and Committed inventory. A container at sea on the last day of the month is not in the total. Whether it belongs in your accounts yet depends on the terms you bought on, which is your accountant's call.

How do I stop reordering stock that is already on its way?

Base every reorder on shelf stock plus what is on its way, never on Available alone, and keep every open order where the calculation can see it, including orders placed by email that never reached Shopify. Then check the dates. A delivery that lands after the shelf empties still leaves a gap, and that gap needs its own faster shipment rather than a second full order.

Does Restocio subtract incoming stock from what it recommends?

Yes. Units on open purchase orders in Restocio reduce the recommended quantity once, split by how each order travels, and an overdue order stays counted until you receive or cancel it. Two limits: the days of stock figure on each card is still shelf stock only, and orders count only once they are entered as purchase orders in Restocio rather than read from Shopify's Incoming tab.

Sources

Every source below was opened and read on the date shown against it. Rules, rates and schedules change, so check the current page before you act on a number that matters. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

• Shopify Help Center, Inventory states (on hand, available, incoming) (read 11 September 2026)
• Shopify Help Center, Inventory reports (month-end inventory value) (read 11 September 2026)

Marcus Volsted

Co-founder, Restocio

Marcus co-founded Restocio and works on it daily with a Swedish importer who plans their purchasing in it every working day. Restocio is built in Sweden by two founders, one Swedish and one Danish, and Marcus is the Danish one. Why we are building it.

Related reading

• Inventory turnover and sell-through, and which one tells you something
• Shopify replenishment, end to end
• How many days of stock should you hold
• Profitable on paper, empty at the bank