Leaving Stocky: a practical guide

What Shopify's own purchase orders do now

Shopify's built-in purchase orders replaced Stocky's. They are worth using, and it helps to know where they stop. This is Stockbeam's reading of Shopify's documentation and changelog as of early October 2026, and Shopify changes things often, so check Shopify's help centre for the current position.

• They do: keep suppliers, take line items (including by CSV upload), prefill costs from your last order, and, since June 2026, create a transfer when you receive, so you can receive in the admin or at the till and receive part of a delivery.
• On their own, they do not: suggest what to reorder or how much, forecast, hold a lead time for each supplier, or work out a minimum or case size for you.
• They do not send the order to your supplier. You can download a PDF and email it yourself.
• Shopify's Sidekick assistant can draft a reorder if you ask it, based on your sales history, and fill in a purchase order for you to adjust. It is a chat answer each time you ask, not a standing list that updates itself.

If you buy from a handful of suppliers and know your own lead times, native purchase orders plus Sidekick may be all you need. The gap shows up when you have many products and want a list that is always current, with the working behind each number.

Getting your Stocky data out

Stocky stopped working on 31 August 2026, but Shopify says you keep read-only access to export your data for at least 90 days after that, so until late November 2026 at the earliest. Export now if you have not. Then look in this order:

1. Search your downloads and email for any Stocky exports you saved before it closed: purchase orders, stock-take counts, supplier lists. Purchase order emails you sent to suppliers are also a record of what you ordered and when.
2. Open Stocky from your Shopify admin and export your purchase orders and stock-takes from its reports. Shopify's guidance says suppliers can't be exported from Stocky, so you will not have a supplier file. That is fine.
3. Keep the files somewhere safe. Stockbeam reads them as they are, so you do not need to tidy or reformat anything.

Shopify has said it cannot import old Stocky purchase orders into its own system, so your open and past orders may only exist in files you saved.

If you did not save your suppliers

Most stores record a vendor on each product in Shopify, and that is enough to rebuild your supplier list.

1. In Stockbeam, open Suppliers. Stockbeam lists the vendors it found on your products.
2. Make each one a supplier in one click.
3. For each supplier, enter how many days their deliveries take, plus an email address and a minimum order if you know them. Lead times matter most, because they decide when Stockbeam tells you to reorder.

If your products have no vendor set, choose Add a supplier and enter them by hand, or upload a spreadsheet of suppliers from the Get started page.

Which files Stockbeam reads

Stockbeam reads these files. Drop in as many as you have, together or one at a time, as .csv, .json or .txt files or a ZIP of them.

• Stocky's purchase order items export (CSV). One row per product on an order, with SKU and Qty Ordered columns plus a Purchase Order column and a Vendor/Supplier column. Your whole history can be in one file. It brings across the orders, their lines, costs, quantities received, order and delivery dates where the file has them, and the supplier names.
• A single order's CSV from Stocky, with SKU, quantity and cost columns. The file does not say who the supplier is, so Stockbeam asks you to pick one when you check it.
• Stocky API files saved as .json: purchase_orders.json (orders, lines and supplier names) or suppliers.json (supplier names and contact emails).
• A suppliers spreadsheet (CSV) that you made or saved yourself. It needs a name column. Email, lead time in days, minimum order quantity and tax rate are read when the file has them.

Stocky's purchase orders list report (one row per order, no products on it) is not enough on its own. The preview says so; export the items or single-order version instead.

What comes across, and what does not

Past and open orders come across with their lines and costs, including ones already received or cancelled. Their deliveries are recorded as history, so your supplier scorecards and measured lead times start with real data instead of empty. History never changes your Shopify stock, and a delivery brought across this way can't be undone. The preview shows how many orders there are by status and the dates they cover before anything is written.

What does not come across: Stocky's own settings, its reorder rules and its stock-take counts. Shopify's guidance says suppliers can't be exported from Stocky, and Stocky's old API files carry only a supplier's name and email, so lead times and minimum order quantities come from the places below, not from Stocky.

Importing into Stockbeam

1. Gather your Stocky files: the purchase orders export (the items version if you can choose), any single-order CSVs, and any suppliers spreadsheet you have. The full list is under Which files Stockbeam reads, above.
2. In Stockbeam, open Settings, then Connections, and choose Import (the Get started page has an Import from Stocky button). Add the files there.
3. Check the preview, which says what each file is and what will be created, then import.

If an export writes dates as 09/02/2025, Stockbeam reads them the way the rest of the file does, and does not guess when the file cannot say. In that case the orders still import, without dates, and the preview tells you. Dates written as 2025-02-09 always read cleanly.

Importing twice does not create duplicates. Rows Stockbeam cannot match to a product are listed so you can fix them and import again.

On the free plan above 1,000 SKUs, purchase-order files are skipped; your suppliers still import.

Your first week

1. Day 1: install Stockbeam and let it read your products and sales history. Nothing in Shopify changes unless you tell Stockbeam to change it.
2. Day 1: bring your suppliers across, by import or from your Shopify vendors, as above.
3. Day 2: set a lead time for each supplier. Check your two or three busiest suppliers first.
4. Day 2: open your reorder list and press Show the working on a few products you know well. Do the numbers match your instinct? If not, the working shows why.
5. Day 3: look at the products Stockbeam has declined to give a quantity for. Each row says why, for example too little sales history. Those are the ones to judge yourself.
6. Day 4: create a purchase order from the suggestions for one supplier you were about to order from anyway, and compare it with what you would have ordered.
7. Day 5: send it, and record the delivery when it arrives. Receiving updates your stock in Shopify.
8. Day 7: re-check your open orders in Stockbeam against any you placed elsewhere, so nothing is counted twice or missed.

What Stockbeam does not do

• It cannot size an order from very little sales history, or from sales too uneven to read. Those products show the reason, and you enter the quantity yourself.
• It does not know about stock that comes in or goes out of your shop outside Shopify, or a promotion you have not told it about. Demand rules let you say so.
• It cannot recover Stocky data you did not save, and it cannot import data Stocky never exported.
• On the free plan, suggestions cover the 1,000 SKUs that most need ordering, and creating purchase orders and importing Stocky purchase orders pause above that.
• It is a small, focused tool and not an accounting package: it does not replace your bookkeeping.

Questions about moving over? Email support@stockbeam.app with your store name. Every store gets a reply within one working day, free plan included.