# Inventory history

> Inventory history is Shopify's log of every stock change on a variant, with the time, the reason and who or what made it.

- Source: https://storestandards.com/glossary/inventory-history/
- Also called: Adjustment history
- Updated: 2026-08-14
- Author: Marcus Ilori, Support lead, Store Standards

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Open a variant, pick a location, and Shopify shows every change to that
number in order.

## What each line tells you

- When it changed, to the minute
- What it went from and to
- Why, if a reason was given
- Who did it, or which app did

The last two are the useful ones. A quantity going from 12 to 4 is not
information. A quantity going from 12 to 4 because an app booked a sale at
09:14 is. The log is per
[location](https://storestandards.com/glossary/shopify-location/), so check you are reading the right
shelf.

## Use it before you adjust

When a count disagrees with the screen, read the history before you correct
anything. Half the time the answer is there: a delivery booked twice, a
transfer that arrived and never left, an app that ran a sync at midnight.

Correcting without looking turns a question you could have answered into an
[inventory adjustment](https://storestandards.com/glossary/inventory-adjustment/) nobody can explain.

## Where it goes wrong

The log runs out. Shopify keeps it for a limited window, so a drift you notice
at the annual count has usually aged out of the record that would explain it.
That is an argument for [cycle counting](https://storestandards.com/glossary/cycle-counting/), where the
gap is days old and the log still has it.

The other one is a wall of app-made changes with no reason attached, which
makes the history technically complete and practically unreadable.

## Related terms

- [Inventory adjustment](https://storestandards.com/glossary/inventory-adjustment/): An inventory adjustment is a manual change to a stock number, made when what the system says does not match the shelf.
- [Stock accuracy](https://storestandards.com/glossary/stock-accuracy/): Stock accuracy is how often the number on screen matches the number on the shelf, counted line by line rather than in total.
- [Cycle counting](https://storestandards.com/glossary/cycle-counting/): Cycle counting is counting a few products often, on a rota, instead of counting everything once a year.