Inventory Reconciliation & Backfills
Detect drift, reconcile sources of truth, and safely backfill changes without duplications.
The problem
Your team spends hours every day reconciling inventory spreadsheets because your systems do not agree on what is in stock. You have had oversells that cost you customer trust, and undersells that cost you revenue. Every morning starts with checking if the numbers match - and they rarely do. Manual adjustments introduce new errors. You know the data is wrong somewhere, but finding where takes detective work.
Why it happens
Inventory drift happens because systems process events at different speeds and in different orders. Your ERP updates in batches overnight. Your 3PL reports fulfillment in real-time. Shopify webhooks sometimes arrive out of sequence or get missed entirely during network issues. Without checksums and periodic reconciliation, small discrepancies compound. The real issue is not sync - it is the lack of a reconciliation layer that detects drift and safely corrects it without creating duplicate adjustments or race conditions.
Your options
We believe in honest recommendations. If native Shopify or an app will work, we'll tell you. Custom builds are for when they won't.
Shopify Inventory Tracking
Built-in inventory management with location tracking and stock adjustments. Works for single-source stores.
When to use
You have one warehouse, sell only through Shopify, and manually update stock levels. No external systems to sync.
Inventory Sync Apps
Apps like Stocky or marketplace integrations that sync inventory between systems. Limited reconciliation capabilities.
When to use
You need basic multi-channel sync with 2-3 systems and can tolerate occasional drift that you fix manually.
Purpose-Built Reconciliation Engine
Event-driven sync with scheduled reconciliation jobs, drift detection, and safe backfill workflows with approval gates.
When to use
You have multiple inventory sources (ERP, 3PL, warehouse), high SKU count, or cannot afford oversells. Enterprise operations.
Our recommended architecture
A dual-layer approach: real-time event sync for speed, scheduled reconciliation for correctness. Events flow through an idempotent pipeline. Reconciliation jobs compare checksums across systems, flag discrepancies, and queue safe adjustments.
Webhook ingestion with deduplication and ordering guarantees
Real-time inventory updates processed idempotently
Scheduled reconciliation job (hourly or daily) compares system states
Drift detection flags discrepancies beyond threshold
Safe backfill queue with batching and rate limiting
Approval workflow for large adjustments (configurable threshold)
Audit log of every change with system attribution
Example outcomes
85% reduction in manual reconciliation time - from 3 hours daily to 30 minutes weekly
Zero oversells over 6 months by catching drift before it affects customers
98.5% inventory accuracy maintained across Shopify, NetSuite, and ShipBob
Automated weekly reconciliation reports that surface issues before they compound
Related Services
Ready to solve this problem?
Book a call and we'll walk through your specific situation, share relevant examples, and give you a clear path forward.