# Unaccounted Stock: Picked and Packed Units That Never Came Back

> What counts as stock, how units in a closed batch or a box that never shipped stop counting, and how to return or write them off so SKUSavvy and Shopify agree.

# What Counts as Stock
SKUSavvy counts a unit as stock in a Warehouse when it knows the unit is in that Warehouse and still available to sell, whether it is in a Bin, waiting unallocated for a putaway, or in a tote mid-pick. That is the number pushed to Shopify as on hand, and the number Reorder Radar and the inventory screens work from.
- Units in a Bin, and unallocated units that have arrived in the Warehouse but not yet been put away.
- Units picked into a batch that is still open. The units are in a tote, and the batch says which one.
- Units that can be built from components, for a kit set to sync its buildable quantity.
- Units packed into a shipment for one of your own Shopify orders, while the shipment is less than 30 days old and has not shipped or been cancelled. Shopify keeps sold units in on hand until they ship, so SKUSavvy does the same.
From that total SKUSavvy subtracts units that other orders are still waiting on: the expected quantity of each open shipment, less what has already been packed for it. This is the committed stock of orders placed outside that Shopify store, and of every order on stores that share the same inventory item.
Two things never count: units in a batch that has closed, and units packed into a shipment that is more than 30 days old, was cancelled, or belongs to an order placed outside Shopify. Those units are unaccounted stock, and this guide is about them.
### What Changed
Picked units used to count or not count based on guesses: how old the batch was, whether a shipment on it was still open, and what state the order was in. A batch older than 30 days quietly dropped out of your stock, and came back in if its shipment stayed open. Nobody was told either way.
Now a batch counts while it is open and never after it closes. Closing is a recorded event with a date, so the question of whether picked units are still stock has one answer, and anything the close left in the tote is listed for you to deal with under Unaccounted Stock.
Packed shipments kept their 30-day window, but past it they are no longer silently forgotten. They appear on the Packed tab of Unaccounted Stock, where you say whether the box is still here or went out.
If a Warehouse total moved when this change landed, this is why. Units in closed batches stopped counting, and the resync warning on your Shopify connection will tell you how many there are.
### How Stock Becomes Unaccounted
##### Picked units
A pick moves units from a Bin into a batch. Normally the batch drains as its shipments pack, or returns its units to their Bins when you delete it or its last shipment fulfils elsewhere. A batch that closes with units still in it strands them: the work finished and nobody recorded where the units went.
- A batch closes on its own once every shipment in it has fulfilled or been cancelled.
- A batch also closes when it goes stale: it has no open shipment newer than 120 days, and nothing has been picked into it for 30 days. A stale close does not return the units, because the box may well have shipped and returning them would invent stock.
- A closed batch cannot be reopened. Picking into one is refused with Batch is closed.
##### Packed units
Packing moves units from the batch into a box on the shipment. The shipment still claims them until it fulfils. A box that sits packed for more than 30 days without shipping is unaccounted: often it did ship and only the fulfilment never reached SKUSavvy, and sometimes it is still on the floor.
Cancelling a shipment does not unpack it. The box stays packed, and stays listed under Packed Shipments, until someone unpacks it or writes it off. Once it is 30 days old it is listed under Unaccounted Stock as well.
### What Unaccounted Stock Does to Your Numbers
Unaccounted units are not counted as stock and have not been removed. SKUSavvy does not know whether they are in a tote on the floor or long gone, so it neither sells them nor writes them off. The history shows the pick or the pack, and nothing after it.
- Your SKUSavvy Warehouse total is lower than what a walk of the shelves and totes would find, if the units are still there.
- Shopify may still show the units as on hand. SKUSavvy tells Shopify about changes, and a batch closing or a box ageing past 30 days is not a change Shopify is told about. The two systems disagree by exactly the unaccounted quantity until you resolve it or resync.
- Reorder Radar reads the same total, so an item with many unaccounted units can look like it needs reordering when the units are sitting in a tote.
When SKUSavvy shows less of a SKU than Shopify does, and less than you can see on the floor, unaccounted stock is the first place to look.
### Find Unaccounted Stock
To see what a Warehouse cannot account for, open the Warehouse, go to Fulfill, and click Unaccounted Stock. You need the Update Inventory right, because every action on the screen changes stock.
The screen has two tabs, Picked and Packed. They are different units: a unit is either loose in a tote or sealed in a box, never both, so the two lists barely overlap.
##### Picked tab
Each row is a closed batch still holding units, with Stuck showing when it closed and Stranded showing how many units it holds. Filter by days stranded (Any, 30+, 90+, 365+), by units or fewer to clear the long tail of small leftovers, and by All batches, Customer orders or Transfers. The warning above the table totals what the current filter matches.
##### Packed tab
Each row is a packed shipment that has not fulfilled, across customer orders and transfers. Only shipments over 30 days old are listed, because under that a packed box is normal work waiting on a label or a pickup, and still counted. Filter by age (30+, 90+, 365+) and by All orders, Customer orders or Transfers. The summary says how many sit on an order that already finished, which usually means the box went out and only the record stayed behind.
Filters drive the bulk actions. Return to shelf and Write off at the top act on everything the current filter matches, and the confirmation states the exact count first. The Return and Write off buttons on a row act on that row alone.
### Your First Pass: Clearing the Backlog
When this change landed, every batch that had stopped moving was closed at once, so most Warehouses got months of leftovers in a single day. The first pass through Unaccounted Stock is a clean-up, not a daily task, and it goes fastest oldest first: the older a leftover is, the more certain it is that the units are gone.
##### Picked tab
1. Set days stranded to 365+. Units picked over a year ago and never returned are not in a tote. Click Write off, give a reason such as backlog from before batch closing, and confirm the count.
1. Repeat at 90+, then 30+. At each step the confirmation states how many units and batches it covers, so read it before you confirm.
1. Set units or fewer to a small number, such as 3, to clear the long tail of one- and two-unit leftovers in one write-off. A single stale batch rarely matters; thousands of them do.
1. What remains is recent. Walk the totes. Return to shelf what you find, then run a putaway for the unallocated stock it creates. Write off the rest.
##### Packed tab
1. Read the summary. The count of shipments on an order that already finished is your write-off list: those boxes went out and the fulfilment never reached SKUSavvy. Writing them off also marks them fulfilled.
1. Set age to 365+ and Write off, then 90+, confirming the count each time. Use Customer orders and Transfers separately if the two need different reasons.
1. For boxes on orders that are still open, check the floor. Return to shelf if the box is there. If it is not, Write off; the shipment stays open until the order finishes, which is correct.
1. Anything reported as skipped has a line with no single Bin to return to. Open that shipment and unpack it by hand.
##### Finish
You are done when the Picked tab reads No stranded picks and the Packed tab is empty at 30+. Then resync each Shopify store from its connection page: the resync warning no longer appears, and Shopify takes the count you just corrected. Reorder Radar recalculates on its own.
After the first pass, the lists stay short. A batch only lands here when it closes with units still in it, and a box only after 30 days unshipped, so a weekly look is enough.
### Resolve Picked Units
Only someone who can look in the tote knows which answer is right, so check physically before you choose. Both actions act on the whole batch: returning part of a tote makes no physical sense.
##### Return to shelf
The units are physically there. They come back as unallocated stock, so a putaway can place them in Bins, and they become sellable again straight away. Use this once someone has confirmed the units are really in the tote.
##### Write off
The units are gone. SKUSavvy returns them and removes them in the same operation, so the history shows both steps instead of stock vanishing, and records the Reason you give. Only do this if the units are not on a shelf anywhere.
Batches holding serialised units are left alone by a write-off, because choosing which named serial went would be a guess. Resolve those batches by hand from the batch itself.
### Resolve Packed Shipments
A box is opened or it is not, so both actions act on every packed line of the shipment. Neither is recoverable by clicking again: unpacking a box that already shipped invents stock that will oversell, and writing off a box still on the floor loses it.
##### Return to shelf
The box is still here. SKUSavvy unpacks it and returns each line to the Bin it was picked from, and the units become sellable again straight away. A shipment is only offered for this when every line has a single Bin to go back to; the rest are left alone and reported as skipped, so unpack those by hand from the shipment.
A cancelled shipment usually cannot be returned this way, because the cancel cleared the batch that remembered the Bins. Unpack it from the shipment, or write it off.
##### Write off
The box went out and only the record stayed behind. SKUSavvy drains the packed quantity, returns nothing to the Warehouse, and records the Reason you give. Only do this if the box is not on the floor anywhere.
If the order has already finished (fulfilled, cancelled or deleted), the shipment is marked fulfilled as well, because that is what happened. If the order is still open, the shipment stays open with nothing packed: the units are gone but the order still wants them, and only the order finishing can say otherwise.
Bulk actions run in chunks and report progress. Closing the confirmation stops at the next chunk, and the chunks that ran are real, so refresh the list before deciding what is left.
### What Shopify Is Told
SKUSavvy pushes a change to Shopify only when the resolution changes what SKUSavvy counts as stock. A resolution that moves units between two states that both count, or both do not count, pushes nothing.
| Action | Pushed to Shopify | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Picked, Return to shelf | An increase of the returned quantity | A closed batch counted nowhere, so putting its units on a shelf is real new stock. |
| Picked, Write off | Nothing | The units were not counted before and are not counted after. The return and the removal cancel out. |
| Packed, Return to shelf | An increase, unless the order is still open and expecting those units | On an open order the units move from packed back to committed, which nets to nothing. On a finished or cancelled order nothing is waiting for them, so the shelf gains real stock. |
| Packed, Write off | Nothing on a finished or cancelled order; on an open order the units return to committed | A box older than 30 days was already outside the count, so removing its record changes nothing. An open order still wants the units, so they are owed again. |
None of this corrects a difference that was already there. If Shopify has been showing units that SKUSavvy stopped counting weeks ago, resolving them brings SKUSavvy to the truth; a resync brings Shopify to it.
### Before You Resync Shopify
A resync treats the SKUSavvy count as the whole truth, and unaccounted units are the part of the truth it leaves out. A push to Shopify sends a count without them; a pull from Shopify overwrites SKUSavvy with a count that never had them. Either way the units are treated as gone.
When the Warehouses you select for a resync hold unaccounted stock, the confirmation shows a warning with the totals, links to Unaccounted Stock for each Warehouse, and a box to tick: I understand these units will not be included in the resync. The resync stays disabled until you tick it.
1. Open Unaccounted Stock for each Warehouse named in the warning.
1. Return what is physically there and write off what is not, so the count you are about to push is right.
1. Run the resync. Shopify then matches SKUSavvy, including the units you just returned.
### Common Questions
##### My Warehouse totals dropped after the update
Batches that had stopped moving were closed, and units still recorded in them stopped counting as stock. Nothing was removed. Open Unaccounted Stock for the Warehouse to see exactly which batches and how many units, and follow Your First Pass above to return what is there and write off what is not.
##### SKUSavvy shows fewer units than I can see on the shelves and in totes
Check the Picked tab of Unaccounted Stock for the Warehouse. Units picked into a batch that has since closed are not counted, even though they are in a tote. Return to shelf brings them back as unallocated stock for putaway.
##### Shopify shows more of a SKU than SKUSavvy does
The difference is usually units in a closed batch or in a box packed more than 30 days ago. SKUSavvy stopped counting them and Shopify was never told. Resolve them under Unaccounted Stock, then resync the store so Shopify matches.
##### A shipment from months ago is listed as unaccounted, but it shipped
The fulfilment never reached SKUSavvy, so the shipment still claims the units. Write it off with a reason. If the order has already finished, the shipment is marked fulfilled at the same time and leaves the Packed Shipments list.
##### I wrote a shipment off and it still shows under Packed Shipments as unpacked
Its order is still open, so the shipment stays open and the order still expects the units. Fulfil or cancel the order, in Shopify or in SKUSavvy, and the shipment follows.
##### Cancelled orders appear in my Packed Shipments list
Cancelling does not unpack the box, and the units in it are not counted as stock. Unpack the shipment so the units return to their Bins, or write it off if the box already went out.
##### Picking fails with Batch is closed
The batch finished or went stale and closed, and a closed batch cannot be reopened. Create a new batch for the remaining work. To see the closed batch itself, switch the batch list on the Fulfill screen to Closed batches; the list shows live work by default, and the switch shows finished batches instead. If units from the old batch are still in a tote, they are listed on the Picked tab of Unaccounted Stock.
##### I returned picked units and now they show as unallocated
That is expected. A closed batch no longer remembers a Bin for each unit, so the units come back as unallocated stock for a putaway to place. They count as stock and can be sold while unallocated.
##### Reorder Radar wants me to reorder an item I have plenty of
Reorder Radar reads the same count, so unaccounted units read as missing. Resolve them first and the suggestion recalculates.