Shopify POS stock count: how to count one location

Count one location per count, and settle transfers first. Stock on a truck is incoming at the destination, not on hand, until someone receives it. Decide which quantity you compare with, on hand or available, and use the same one for every line. Shopify's own POS stock counts are built for POS Pro locations, and the last sections cover when an app is the better fit.

A stocktake (or stock take) at a POS location fails in a few predictable places: the wrong quantity, a transfer that is half done, and a back room nobody counted. Each has a check.

One location, one count#

Shopify's help center says a stock count covers one location. If you run a shop and a warehouse, you make two counts (Shopify help: creating stock counts, checked 15 Oct 2026).

That is the safe way to think about any count, in any tool, and it holds whether you scan with a phone or write on paper. Stock lives at a location, and a count is a claim about one of them. When you count the shop, the warehouse number should not move. If you run several locations, our page on multi-location inventory shows stock and counts split by location.

Counts also belong to a moment. Sales keep adjusting the number while you count, and Shopify's planning page says inventory adjusts in real time when a sale completes in POS or online (Shopify help: planning a count, checked 15 Oct 2026). Count after close, or in slices. Either way the window shrinks. Our article on counting while the store keeps selling goes through it.

Which number you are counting against#

Shopify splits the quantity at a location into states, and its inventory states page defines them. On hand is every unit at the location. Available is what you can sell. Committed is set aside for orders you have not fulfilled, plus draft orders. Unavailable is held for reasons like damage. Incoming is on its way (Shopify help: inventory states, checked 15 Oct 2026).

On hand is committed plus unavailable plus available. Shopify's stock count page says the count is checked against the on-hand quantity recorded in Shopify, and the POS page says Quick count has staff count on hand inventory too. So on a Shopify count you count everything physically at the location, including packed orders and the damaged bin.

Here is what that means at a shop, where packed orders waiting for pickup, a damaged bin and the shelf itself all sit within ten steps of each other and all count as stock on hand. Say a product shows 18 available, 4 committed and 1 unavailable.

On hand = 4 + 1 + 18 = 23

On the floor: 18 units on the shelf, 4 on the pickup shelf for orders not yet collected, 1 chipped unit in the damaged bin.

Physical = 18 + 4 + 1 = 23

Count only the shelf and you get 18, which is where most people stop. Against on hand (23) that is a gap of minus 5, which is false. Against available (18) it is a match. Count everything in the building and you get 23, which matches on hand.

Either comparison works if you stick to one. The mistake is to count one set of things and then compare it with a number built from another set, which happens most when two people split the room and each assumes the other chose the state. Write the state at the top of your count sheet. One line is enough.

Transfers in transit#

Units on the way between locations are incoming at the destination. Not on hand. Not available. Shopify says incoming units cannot be sold until they are received, and when they are received they become available and count in on hand.

This is how a unit gets counted twice. Say the shop shows 6 on hand with 10 incoming from the warehouse. The boxes arrive in the morning, someone shelves the 10, and nobody receives the transfer in Shopify. At count time:

Shelf = 6 + 10 = 16
Shopify on hand = 6
Gap = 16 - 6 = +10

If you apply that count, on hand becomes 16. Later, someone receives the transfer. The 10 incoming units become available:

On hand after receiving = 16 + 10 = 26
Shelf = 16
Shopify is 10 too high.

The units were counted twice, once by the count and once by the receipt. Fix the order and the problem goes away.

1. Receive the transfer in Shopify first. On hand is now 6 + 10 = 16.
2. Count the shop. Shelf 16, Shopify 16, gap 0.

If the units are still on the truck during your count, leave them out. Expect 6, not 16.

Shopify's planning page also says to complete pending orders, transfers and shipments before a count, and to pause transfers between locations during the count window (planning page, checked 15 Oct 2026). We agree, and we would add a cutoff time. Write down the hour after which no transfer is shipped or received until the count is applied, and tell everyone who handles boxes, including the person who signs for the supplier's delivery at the back door.

What happens at the origin? We could not confirm from Shopify's pages when the origin's on hand drops for a transfer in transit. Open the origin variant in your admin before the count and read it, rather than assume.

Back room, shop floor and items held for customers#

If the back room and the floor are one Shopify location, they are one count. Count both and split the work into zones by physical area: shelf run, stockroom section, pickup shelf. Shopify's planning page suggests the same, and a zone that is finished can be submitted before the next starts.

If the back room is its own Shopify location, count each one separately. Stock you carry from the back room to the floor is a transfer. Make it before the count, not during.

Items held for a customer need a decision before the count starts, because the count cannot make it for you. If they sit in an unfulfilled order or a draft order, Shopify shows them as committed, and the example above applies. If someone put a unit behind the counter with no order behind it, Shopify has no idea. Count it, and note it. Either create the order, or count the unit and move on with a note.

What Shopify's own stock counts do#

Shopify now runs stock counts in the admin and POS. What follows is what its help pages say as of 15 Oct 2026. We have not tested these features on a live store. Where a page is silent, we say so.

• Where you create one. In the admin on a desktop browser, with one location and a list of products found by search or barcode. You cannot create one in POS. Bundles are not supported, duplicate barcodes cause scan errors, and counts cannot be duplicated or exported (creating stock counts).
• Who can count. Staff with the Perform inventory counts permission, in POS. Several staff can count at the same time, each entering a PIN so counted items are attributed to the person. Only listed items can be counted, and expected quantities are shown (POS help page).
• When quantities change. Not at submission. Staff request a review, a manager compares Expected with Counted, can reject a product, and approves. Approving applies the difference between counted and expected quantities and writes each change to the adjustment history. Approval cannot be undone. Complete count skips the review and also cannot be undone (overview, performing and reviewing).
• Sales during the count. If a product's inventory changes during the count, POS marks it outdated and it can no longer be counted. The other products can still be counted and sent for review.
• Plan. The POS page says stock counts are available only to locations with a POS Pro subscription. The overview says POS Pro lets staff also count in the POS app. Those two sentences do not settle whether counting in the admin alone works without POS Pro, so check your own admin.
• Quick count is a different tool. Staff adjust quantities straight from POS, count on hand, and get up to 1,000 variants per session. It needs a permission and has to be activated.

It is a clean split between counting and approving, with an audit trail. It fits a shop whose staff already work in POS. The pages do not say what approval does with a sale made after a product was counted but before approval. A short test below answers it for your store.

When a separate count app helps#

Use Shopify's counts if you have POS Pro, your staff count in POS, and you want a manager to approve before anything moves. A second tool would add little. Our page on a phone count for a POS shop covers the app side of a shelf-by-shelf routine.

An app helps in these cases:

• No POS Pro at the location. The POS page limits stock counts to POS Pro locations.
• You count by supplier, collection or tag. Shopify's creation page describes picking products by search or scan. It does not describe picking by collection or vendor.
• You want a report in your inbox. Shopify's page says counts cannot be exported.
• You count while selling. Shopify marks a changed product outdated and blocks it. An app can keep counting and net the sales afterward, adjusting each line by what changed since the line was counted instead of overwriting it with the counted number. That is a different trade-off, not a better one: Shopify's choice cannot write a stale number, at the price of recounts on a busy day.

We build Binly, so weigh this section with that in mind. It starts a count by collection, supplier or tag, or on the whole catalog, and it emails a report with a before and after CSV to up to five addresses. The box below says how it handles sales mid-count.

A ten minute test before you trust any method#

Run this on one product you can afford to get wrong.

1. Pick a product with a known number, say 10 available at the shop. Count it: 10.
2. Before you approve or apply, sell one unit.
3. Approve or apply the count.
4. Read the number in the admin. 10 means the sale was wiped out, 9 means it was kept, and a refusal to count the product means the tool treats it as outdated.

Do it on a quiet afternoon, not on count day. The answer is in your admin in ten minutes. It is worth more than any help page, ours included.

After the count: look at the transfers#

Compare variances across locations. Shopify's planning page notes that a positive variance at one location and a negative at another often points to a transfer nobody recorded. Open the transfer list. Look for anything shipped but never received.

Keep a note of the count date, the quantity you compared with and the transfers you settled. Our guide to recount rules tells you which differences deserve a second look.

Pick one location, settle its transfers, and count it once this week with the state written on top of the sheet.