Inventory
Monitor stock health, plan replenishment and manage product inventory in Keel HQ.
Inventory brings Shopify product stock, sales and return data into one place. Connect Shopify before using it. Keel HQ shows your storefront names here; unnamed connections appear as Shopify store 1 and Shopify store 2.
Overview
Use Overview as a stock-health check. It groups products into Out of Stock, No Sales, Running Low, Healthy and Overstocked, and links each group to the matching Catalog view. It also shows inventory allocation, stock at cost, an ABC-grade breakdown and a short Action Queue.
Start with a status tile, then use the Action Queue to decide what to reorder or review. Products without a Shopify cost per item are not valued as $0.
The figures use the inventory glossary:
Catalog
Catalog is the product list for checking stock, sales pace, Sell-Through and the projected Stockout date. Search for a product or filter by status, season, ABC grade or storefront. The table uses your storefront names and also shows combined totals.
Open a product to set its season, supplier, reorder point, MOQ and lead days. A supplier's lead time can drive the reorder point; you can also enter a fixed reorder point or MOQ. Select Save Settings when you are done. Use Plan a PO and preview its cash impact to begin a purchase order for the product.
Products marked as bundles are excluded from the inventory catalog so their component units are not counted twice.
Mystery-box costs
For a mystery-box product, choose one Mystery box cost option in its Catalog drawer:
- Unknown — detect from order edits
- Cost comes from items added to order
- Fixed product cost
When an order-edit component is recorded, Keel HQ captures that component's cost at the time of sale. That saved cost does not change if its Shopify cost per item changes later. A mystery box can remain uncosted when Keel HQ cannot establish all of its component costs, so do not use it as a promise of exact COGS for every mystery-box order.
If a mystery box appears in Top uncosted products, its reason can be one of these:
See Fix uncosted products for what to do with each reason.
- A component is not in inventory, so it has no cost.
- A component has no cost per item in Shopify.
- Keel HQ has not yet read which items an order edit added; this fills in automatically.
- No components were found on the orders, so the box cost is unknown.
While Keel HQ is rereading earlier edited orders, the Shopify connection can show Re-reading N edited orders… P%. If it needs another pass, it shows N edited orders couldn't be read yet; Keel HQ retries automatically.
Pipeline
Pipeline is a Beta tab for planning products that do not yet exist in Shopify inventory. Add a product at Design, then move it through Sample, Sample Testing, Production, Drop Planning and Dropped. Use a product's detail view to record sample rounds, notes and tasks.
Pipeline is for planning only; it does not change Shopify stock.
Drops
Use Drops to track a product launch and its sell-through pace. Create a drop, choose its products and storefronts, enter the launch inventory, then watch its On Pace, Behind or At Risk status. A drop detail page shows the remaining inventory, Sell-Through, weekly sales, notes and a kill-or-keep recommendation.
Use the launch quantities from the drop rather than current stock to measure its sell-through. You can adjust those quantities later from the drop detail.
POs
POs records supplier purchase orders and their payment schedules. Add suppliers in Settings first, then select New PO. Add the lines, dates and payment schedule, choose the status, and use Preview cash impact before saving.
Placed and shipped purchase orders contribute to On Order inventory. Their unpaid scheduled payments can appear in the Cash forecast. Use Import on this tab to bring in suppliers, open purchase orders or SKU settings from a spreadsheet.
Seasonal
Seasonal is a Beta tab that compares products tagged Spring / Summer, Fall / Winter and Evergreen. Set a product's season from its Catalog drawer, then use Seasonal to compare its stock and Sell-Through with the rest of that season.
Margins
Use Margin Calculator to create saved margin profiles for planning a product's price and landed cost. Select New, enter the product name, type, cost inputs and pricing, then save the profile. Keel HQ shows full-price, wholesale and sale-price scenarios.
Profiles are planning calculators, not live Shopify margins. Their shipping, return and payment assumptions come from Settings → Goals → Margin Calculator Defaults.
Returns
Returns summarizes Shopify refund records. Choose a range, then review return volume, refunded revenue, return rate, outcome mix and Top Returned Products. Use it to identify products that are coming back more often.
The tab distinguishes refunds, exchanges, store credit and unknown outcomes. It needs Shopify refund data; if it is missing, go to Settings → Integrations and select Sync Returns on the Shopify card.
Actions
Actions is the prioritized list of inventory work. It groups products as Out of Stock, Stockout Soon, Reorder and Dead Stock. Work from top to bottom: open the Catalog entry to investigate, or select Plan a PO and preview its cash impact to start replenishment.
Use the glossary when reviewing the list:
Dismissals only last for the current page session. Keel HQ lists a product only once, under its highest-priority action.
Settings
Inventory Settings controls the thresholds and setup Inventory uses. Adjust Status Thresholds, ABC Classification and Drop Tracker settings to match your operating model. Use Product Exclusion Rules to hide matching vendor- or tag-based products from the catalog and inventory calculations.
Add suppliers here before creating purchase orders. A supplier's lead time, MOQ and payment terms help Keel HQ calculate reorder timing and prefill a PO payment schedule. Use SKU Mappings when the same product has different SKUs between your storefronts.
Import
Select Import from POs to bring in suppliers, open purchase orders or per-SKU settings. Choose the file type, check its column mapping, select Review import, confirm the review and then import. Nothing is saved until the final import step.
Keel HQ accepts .csv and .xlsx files. It reads the first sheet of an .xlsx file. The older .xls format is rejected; save it as .xlsx or .csv first.
The limits are 10,000 rows, 200 columns and 2,000 characters per cell. Keel HQ sends the parsed spreadsheet as a request of up to about 4.5 MB, rather than uploading the original file.
Import fields
| Import | Fields |
|---|---|
| Suppliers | Supplier name; Lead time (days); MOQ; Currency; Payment terms; Email; Notes |
| Purchase orders | PO number; Supplier; Quantity ordered; Status; SKU; Product; Variant; Quantity received; Unit cost; Currency; Order date; Ship date; Expected arrival; Amount paid; Payment status; Paid date |
| SKU settings | SKU; Supplier; Lead time (days); MOQ; Reorder point (units) |
Bold fields are required. A purchase-order row represents one line; rows with the same PO number become one purchase order. Map the columns before reviewing the import, especially when using an export from Stocky, Inventory Planner or Prediko.
If you import a unit cost, see Costs for how Keel HQ uses costs in your margins.
Updated October 28, 2026