How to Manage Partially Received Purchase Orders

The box arrives, the packing slip says 80 units, you ordered 120. Forty are missing, no explanation attached, and now you have to decide what to do with a purchase order that's neither empty nor complete.

What counts as partial

A partial receipt is a shipment that arrived short of what the purchase order says you ordered — not a shipment that's simply running late. If nothing has arrived yet, that's a late order, a different problem with a different fix. Partial is specifically: something showed up, and it's less than the full quantity on at least one line.

Recording a partial receipt

Once a purchase order is marked Ordered, receiving happens on the linked inventory transfer, not on the PO itself — Shopify's PO object only ever shows Draft or Ordered; it has no "Partially Received" status of its own. On the transfer, you record the quantity that actually arrived for each line, matched against the packing slip in the box, not against what you expected. If 80 of 120 arrived, you record 80 received and leave the remaining 40 outstanding on that same transfer.

The transfer's own status reflects this automatically: In progress while any quantity is still outstanding, Transferred only once every line is fully received. A short shipment keeps the transfer at In progress indefinitely, until either the rest arrives or you decide it isn't coming.

Leaving it open vs. writing off the shortage

Here's the part that surprises people: there's no "close the PO" button, because the PO itself was never something that closes — it stays at Ordered permanently, whether the order fully arrived, partially arrived, or never showed up at all. What you're actually deciding isn't the PO's status, it's whether to keep the transfer expecting the remaining 40 units, or to treat the shortage as final.

If your supplier confirms the remaining units are on their way separately, leave the transfer In progress and receive the rest when it lands. If the supplier tells you the 40 aren't coming — a substitution, a cancellation, a permanent shortage — you're better off recording that explicitly with a note on the transfer than letting it sit In progress forever with nothing arriving. An indefinitely open transfer with no realistic expectation attached to it is exactly the kind of thing that gets forgotten and quietly throws off your reorder math later.

Inventory sync implications

Only the quantity you actually record as received moves from Incoming into Available and On hand — the 80 units, not the 120 you ordered. The outstanding 40 stay wherever they were before you decided what to do with them: still Incoming if you're expecting them separately, or effectively gone from your numbers if you've written the shortage off.

This matters for whatever's watching your stock levels next. If your reorder point assumes the full 120 arrived when only 80 did, you'll look better-stocked than you are and skip a reorder you actually needed — the same trap a stale count causes anywhere else in the purchase order process. Recording the real received quantity, promptly, is what keeps the numbers honest.

Recording it by hand every time is also where mistakes creep in — a double-click on "receive" or a retried save can double-count a receipt if the tool behind it isn't built to catch that. StockCue's receiving flow is built to be safely retried without double-counting, on the Starter plan and up.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean when a purchase order is partially received?

It means a shipment arrived, but less than the full quantity you ordered on at least one line, not that the order hasn't shipped at all. In Shopify, this shows up as an inventory transfer sitting at "In progress" rather than "Transferred," not as a status on the PO itself.

Should you close a PO after a partial shipment or leave it open?

Shopify's PO doesn't have a "close" action; it stays at Ordered regardless. The real decision is whether to leave the linked transfer In progress, expecting the remainder, or to record the shortage as final if your supplier isn't sending the rest.

Does a partial receipt update Shopify's inventory automatically?

Only for the quantity you actually record as received. That amount moves from Incoming into Available and On hand; the outstanding balance stays wherever it was until you either receive it later or decide it isn't coming.