Catalog

Inventory Snapshots

An Inventory Snapshot is a point-in-time CSV export of stock quantities for every active Product in your Warehouse. Each row captures how much inventory is Expected, Processed, Put-Away, Available, Allocated, Reserved, Picked, Held, and On Hand at the moment the snapshot is taken, along with Product dimensions and identifiers. Snapshots are retained and downloadable at any time, so you can compare yesterday's position against last week's, audit how a number changed over time, or hand a stakeholder a frozen view of inventory without exporting it again.

Snapshots can be taken on demand or generated automatically on a recurring schedule.

Where to find Inventory Snapshots

Navigate to Warehouse -> Stock -> Inventory Snapshots. The grid lists every snapshot you have access to, sorted by Created At (newest first). You can filter by Warehouse, Merchant Name, Created At, and Created By, and the Total Rows column tells you how many Product rows each snapshot covers.

Click the icon in the Download column to retrieve a snapshot's CSV. Snapshots remain available as long as they exist in the grid — there is no expiration.

Taking a Snapshot on Demand

Click Take Snapshot at the top right of the Inventory Snapshots grid. ShipStream generates the snapshot, returns you to the grid with the new row at the top, and your browser automatically downloads the CSV.

The snapshot's scope depends on where you click the button:

From the global Inventory Snapshots grid: all Merchants and Warehouses you have access to are included.
From a Merchant-scoped view of the grid (for example, opening the page from the Choose Merchant dropdown), the button becomes Take Merchant Snapshot and the snapshot only contains that Merchant's Products.

If you operate multiple Warehouses, the snapshot also respects your currently-selected Warehouse — switch to All Warehouses before taking the snapshot if you want every Warehouse in one file.

Only Products with a status of Enabled are included. Disabled Products are skipped even if they have stock on hand.

Scheduling Automatic Snapshots

Automatic snapshots are useful when you want a consistent daily, hourly, or end-of-shift record without anyone having to remember to click the button. Scheduled snapshots show up in the grid the same way manual ones do.

To configure the schedule:

Navigate to System -> Configuration -> Warehouse -> Stock -> Inventory Snapshots.
Set Cron Enabled to Yes.
Enter a standard cron expression in Cron Schedule — for example, 0 6 * * * to take a snapshot at 6:00 AM every day. Times are evaluated in the system timezone configured under System -> Configuration -> General -> Locale Options.
Click Save Config.

See Timezones for a reminder of which clock the Cron Schedule uses.

When the schedule fires, ShipStream takes one snapshot per Merchant (covering all of that Merchant's Warehouses) and saves them with no Created By user, which distinguishes scheduled snapshots from on-demand ones in the grid. To stop automatic snapshots, set Cron Enabled back to No.

What's in the CSV

Each row represents one Product in one Warehouse. The file is downloaded as InventorySnapshot_YYYY-MM-DD.csv (a Merchant-scoped snapshot adds the Merchant code to the filename).

Identification columns

Warehouse - The Warehouse the row belongs to. Only present when you operate multiple Warehouses.
Merchant - The Merchant the Product belongs to. Only present when the snapshot spans multiple Merchants.
Timestamp - The moment the snapshot was generated.
Product ID, SKU, Name - The Product's internal identifier, SKU, and Name.
Weight, Length, Width, Height - The Product's physical dimensions, as configured on the Product record.

Quantity columns

Expected - Inventory ShipStream is expecting from open Deliveries but hasn't received yet.
Processed - Inventory that has been received and Processed but is still waiting to be moved into a pickable Location.
Put-Away - Inventory in pickable Locations, eligible for allocation.
Available - Put-Away inventory that is not currently committed to an Order — the quantity actually available to sell or fulfill.
Allocated - Inventory committed to Orders that are in progress but not yet Picked.
Reserved - Inventory set aside for future commitments, outside of a specific Order's allocation.
Picked - Inventory that has been picked off the shelf but not yet shipped out.
Total Backordered - Aggregate backorder demand across all Orders for the Product.
Held - Inventory currently on a Hold (QC, recall, expiration, damage, or any custom Hold Reason) and therefore not available to allocate. See Inventory Holds.
On Hand - Total physical quantity in the Warehouse — the sum of Available, Allocated, Picked, and Held.
Advertised - Quantity ShipStream advertises to integrations as sellable, which may differ from Available when Kit-on-Demand Products or oversell buffers are configured.

Access and Permissions

Access to Inventory Snapshots is controlled by the Warehouse -> Stock -> Inventory Snapshots ACL resource. Users without this permission do not see the menu entry. Merchants can also access their own snapshots through the Client UI under the same menu path, scoped automatically to their Merchant.

Import Products

Inventory Holds