What Shopify’s built-in purchase orders do and do not do

What it does

• Create and track purchase orders, and receive against them.
• Transfer inventory between locations.
• Adjust inventory quantities and report on historical changes.

Where merchants hit the wall

• Cost and SKU are not carried onto the line from the product record.
• No label printing tied to what you received.
• No weighted average cost update from the price you actually paid.
• Supplier records are thinner than most retailers need, including separate bill-to details.

The API gap nobody mentions

Shopify does not expose purchase orders through its API. That means no third-party app can read, report on, or extend the purchase orders you create in the admin — every replacement keeps its own records instead. Shopify has said purchase order APIs are under consideration for the future.

The practical consequence: if you adopt an app for purchase orders, raise them in the app rather than half in one place and half in the other.

Questions

Can I use Shopify purchase orders and an app at the same time?

You can, but they cannot see each other. Since Shopify does not expose purchase orders through its API, pick one place to raise them.

Is the native purchase order enough for a single shop?

If you never print price labels, your supplier prices never move, and you do not run barcode counts, it may well be. Try it first.