Inventory transfers move stock between locations (or from an external supplier into one of your locations). Each transfer has a set of line items and one or more shipments that carry those line items to their destination.

Download a sample inventory transfer file that creates two draft transfers with line items.

If the ID matches an existing transfer on the store, that transfer is updated; if it's blank, a new transfer is created. When creating new transfers, you can also put any made-up value in this column to group multiple rows into the same transfer - Shopify will generate the real ID at create time and your placeholder is discarded.

The human-readable name (e.g., #T123) that Shopify assigns to every transfer. It cannot be set or changed on import - Shopify generates it. When updating an existing transfer you can use the Name column to look it up if you don't have the numeric ID. When creating new transfers you can still put any value in this column to group multiple rows together into the same transfer; the placeholder is only used for grouping and is discarded once the transfer is created. If you need a writable identifier of your own, use Reference Name instead.

REPLACE is not supported for inventory transfers.

When importing, the app walks the status machine from the transfer's current status towards the requested one. Only legal transitions are allowed (for example, you cannot move a cancelled transfer back to draft). In Progress and Received are controlled by shipment operations - to reach those statuses, include shipment columns in your spreadsheet (see the Shipments section below). If the status column is set to one of these values but no shipment columns are present, the status is ignored.

A free-form reference you can use to tie the transfer back to a purchase order or other internal identifier.

The date the transfer was created. ISO-formatted timestamps (eg, 2026-04-01T09:00:00Z) are also supported. If no timezone is specified, the store's timezone is used.

A plain-text note stored on the transfer. Visible in the Shopify admin.

Tags help categorize transfers and can be used as export filters.

The total number of units being moved by the transfer. This is calculated by Shopify and cannot be imported.

How many units have been received across all shipments on this transfer. Export only.

Either the location name or its Shopify ID can be used. Leave this column blank to indicate that the transfer comes from an external supplier (no Shopify location).

Either the location name or its Shopify ID can be used. Leave this column blank to indicate that the destination is external (stock leaving your Shopify locations).

Origin and destination can only be changed while the transfer is in Draft status.

Line items are represented as additional rows under the same transfer. The first row holds the transfer-level columns; subsequent rows only need the line-item columns populated.

Used internally to identify an existing line item. Usually you don't need to provide this on import - the line item is matched by SKU or barcode instead.

The app looks up the variant by SKU and uses its inventory item. If both SKU and Barcode are provided, SKU wins. If the SKU matches more than one variant in your store, the row is rejected with error TRFR021 - duplicate SKUs must be resolved before the transfer can be imported.

An alternative way to look up the inventory item when the SKU is not available. As with the SKU column, ambiguous barcodes are rejected with error TRFR021.

The title of the product that owns the inventory item. Export only.

The title of the variant. Export only.

Quantity must be greater than zero. Setting a line item to 0 has no effect; use Line Item: Command = DELETE to remove a line item instead.

The portion of the line item that has not yet been added to a shipment.

Summed across all shipments on the transfer.

Aggregated from the individual shipment line items.

Aggregated from the individual shipment line items.

Shipments carry the line items from origin to destination. A transfer can have multiple shipments - the columns for each shipment use a numbered prefix (Shipment 1:, Shipment 2:, and so on).

When the sheet has no Line Item: columns at all, shipments apply to the entire transfer automatically, pulling in every line item at its full shippable quantity. This is the easiest way to ship a transfer - just provide the Shipment 1: columns and every line item on the transfer will be included. Mixing Shipment: and Shipment 1: columns in the same sheet is not allowed.

A transfer must be in Ready to Ship or later before a shipment can be created against it. If the transfer is currently in Draft, include a Status column set to Ready to Ship (or In Progress / Received if you also want to walk it further along the lifecycle) in the same row as the shipment columns - Altera will transition the transfer out of draft before creating the shipment.

If present, the shipment is updated. If blank, a new shipment is created for the transfer.

Generated by Shopify; cannot be imported.

When importing, the app walks the shipment through the required status transitions (for example, from Draft → In Transit → Received).

ISO-formatted timestamps are also supported.

Used when transitioning a shipment from Draft to In Transit.

Used when transitioning a shipment to Received.

Metafields can be imported and exported with inventory transfers to store custom metadata and additional attributes.

For detailed information about working with metafields, see our Metafields guide.

You can use these filters to limit which inventory transfers are exported: