Inventory

Stock is imported from Shopify per location. When the quantity on hand drops below a threshold you set in advance, a review task is automatically created for a staff member. Whether to reorder, and how much, is a judgment call the staff member makes inside that task by typing in a quantity — there is no automatic calculation of reorder quantities and no automatic dispatch to suppliers.

Inventory by location

Whenever stock changes in Shopify, the quantities for each location are updated here automatically. Multiple locations are combined into a single stock figure for each product, which is used for allocation — deciding which location an order should ship from.

You set the allocation priority in the Webtop Commerce app under Inventory → Locations.

  • Prefer the location with the most stock (default)
  • Prefer specific locations (list locations in priority order; anything left over is drawn from whichever location has the most stock)
  • For each location, you can also set a quantity to hold back and keep out of allocation

Inventory review threshold

The threshold is a single fixed number set per product (variant). There is no rule engine and no demand forecasting involved.

  • To set a threshold for an individual product, use the Planning section of the Commerce Product app.
  • Products without their own threshold fall back to the blanket default set in the Webtop Commerce app under Inventory → Planning.
  • A product with neither a specific threshold nor a blanket default is not monitored until a threshold is set for it.

How an inventory review task works

  1. The moment a product's total stock across all locations drops below its threshold, an "Inventory & Reorder Review" task is created. (It is not created repeatedly while stock stays below the threshold — only at the moment it first crosses.)
  2. If a product doesn't have a threshold set yet, a "Set Inventory Threshold" task is created instead. You can control this behavior in the Webtop Commerce app under Inventory → Inventory alert, choosing whether to create a "set threshold" task (the default) or do nothing.
  3. Both kinds of tasks appear in the Webtop Tasks app. On an "Inventory & Reorder Review" task, the staff member checks the current stock level, the threshold, and past reorder history, then types in the reorder quantity they've decided on. Entering a quantity also records it in Shopify as incoming stock; completing the task with the quantity left at 0 records nothing in Shopify.

If a stock update from Shopify is occasionally delayed or missed, it isn't a lasting problem — the reconciliation check described in "Operations tools" periodically re-fetches stock and re-evaluates it, so things catch up to the correct state before long.

Note: A product that has never been received from Shopify (for example, one just added) is not yet covered by inventory review. Monitoring begins once the product has been imported and a threshold has been set for it.

Backorders

When an order's quantity exceeds available stock, or when a product carries a tag used for pre-orders, that order line is recorded as a backorder.

  • When stock comes back in, a "Release Backorder" task is created to clear backorders, starting with the oldest order.
  • If an order is refunded, its backorder is cancelled automatically.
  • Which product tags count as pre-orders, and whether notifications are sent, are configured in the Webtop Commerce app under Inventory → Backorders (by default, notifications are sent both when a backorder is created and when it's released).

Turning it on (dormant by default)

The inventory review and backorder mechanisms are always running in the background, but nothing is sent or notified until the following are set up.

  1. Connect to Shopify (Webtop Commerce app → Connection → Shop): enter the four Admin API fields — shop domain, API version, client ID, and client secret.
  2. Register webhooks (same Commerce app → Connection → Webhooks): enter the callback URL and click the button, and all the notification subscriptions you need for stock changes, product changes, and more are registered in one step. See "Integration & ingestion" for details.
  3. Notification channels (Commerce app → Connection → Notifications): Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, LINE, email, and generic webhooks are all supported. Every channel ships disabled, so turn on at least one and set its destination. Inventory review tasks are still created without a notification channel enabled — staff members simply won't be notified.
  4. Inventory review thresholds: see "Inventory review threshold" above, and set thresholds either per product or as a blanket default. If you set nothing up front, you'll end up setting thresholds product by product as "Set Inventory Threshold" tasks come in.