Shopify Purchase Order Reports: Costs, Receiving, Dates, and Currency

Choose a report by the question

A purchase order (PO) records inventory ordered from a supplier for a destination location. It is different from a customer sales order. To review supplier costs, estimated tax, and the total including estimated tax, start with Purchase order costs.

For transfers, shipments, and receiving linked to a purchase order, choose Purchase order transfers. For orders marked as ordered that remain open and have no linked transfer, choose Purchases on order. Keep orders without transfers separate from linked transfers being received.

Read the cost, quantity, and order metrics

Purchase order supplier cost is the pre-tax supplier cost, Purchase order tax amount is estimated tax, and Purchase order cost includes estimated tax. Average purchase order supplier unit cost is weighted by ordered quantity, rather than a simple arithmetic average of the displayed unit prices.

Purchase orders counts unique purchase orders represented by line items in the selected date range. Purchase order line items counts each line item. When grouped by product or variant, one purchase order can occupy several rows; do not treat the row count as the order count.

Separate linked transfers from orders without transfers

Purchase order transfers is based on shipment line items linked to purchase orders. It can show shipment status, expected delivery date, destination, and quantities shipped, received, accepted, and rejected. Its report date range uses Shipment created date, rather than line item created date.

Purchases on order covers ordered quantities and costs for open, ordered purchase orders with no linked transfers. It helps identify orders without an associated transfer; it is not a complete view of every order that has not been fully received. For receiving progress on orders that do have linked transfers, use Purchase order transfers.

Check which date the report uses

Custom purchase order reports and the default Purchase order costs and Purchases on order reports use purchase order line item created date for the date range. Purchase order transfers uses shipment created date. Cost and receiving reports for the same period may therefore include different records.

For example, suppose a purchase order line item was created on November 1 and its linked shipment was created on November 10. Filtering for November 10 can include different records in the two report types. This is a hypothetical illustration of date fields, not an observed store result.

Custom reports can also group or filter by purchase order created, placed, ordered, and closed dates. Ordered date means the time the purchase order was marked as ordered. To analyze placement or closure timing, select the corresponding dimension rather than treating the default line item date as the same field.

Check supplier currency and cost conversion

Cost metrics are converted from the supplier currency on the purchase order to your store currency. The conversion uses a daily exchange rate based on when the line item was added, so the converted report amount can differ from the amount displayed on the purchase order. A store-currency total alone does not recover the original supplier-currency amount or identify the exact rate.

Group or filter by Supplier currency to identify purchase orders using different supplier currencies. Before comparing supplier costs, check whether currencies are mixed and confirm that the report uses store currency. The guidance reviewed here does not identify the exact exchange-rate source or conversion fees.

Create an exploration and refine it

Shopify says creating a new data exploration is available on all plans. The purchase order help page still makes analytics conditional on availability to your store, without explaining the eligibility, regions, or role permissions. Access to explorations generally does not establish access to purchase order data for every store.

If your store has purchase order analytics, go to Analytics > Reports > New exploration in Shopify admin, or start from the Analytics dashboard library. Add at least one metric to a blank exploration, then choose dimensions, comparisons, filters, and a visualization.

For a custom query, use the ShopifyQL editor or ask Sidekick to generate or refine a query, then save the report. You can also customize a default report and save a copy, but some reports cannot be filtered, edited, or duplicated. Check the options actually available.

If the result is empty, first check that relevant records fall within the date range, then review the underlying date field and filters. Start with a narrower period and fewer grouping dimensions, apply filters early, and expand the query gradually.