Overview
The Add to existing shipment bulk action lets you select one or more lines from the cross-PO Line Items view and append them to a shipment that already exists — without navigating to the shipment record manually. It appears alongside the Build shipment action in the selection bar.
Availability note: This feature is rolling out gradually. If you do not see the Add to existing shipment button, contact support to check availability for your account.
Step-by-step
- Go to Inventory → Purchase Orders and open the Line Items tab (the cross-PO view, not the Shipments tab on an individual PO).
- Check the box next to each line you want to add. Lines from different POs can be selected together.
- In the bulk-action bar that appears, click Add to existing shipment.
- The shipment picker dialog opens. Use the available controls to find the right shipment:
- Search bar — filter by reference number, SKU, or product name.
- Only this selection's suppliers checkbox — on by default when your selected lines have a supplier; hides shipments that don't share a supplier with any selected line.
- Include closed shipments checkbox — off by default; turn it on to include shipments already marked closed.
- Review the list. Each row shows the shipment's reference number, shipping date, status, and destination warehouse.
- Shipments labelled Reconciled — can't add cannot be used as a target: their inbound delivery has already been matched to receiving reports, and adding lines now would leave those reports out of step with the shipment.
- Click Add here on the shipment you want to use.
- The shipment form opens with your selected lines pre-loaded alongside any lines already on that shipment. Adjust quantities if needed, then click Save.
- The Line Items grid refreshes and shows updated remaining-to-ship figures for all affected lines.
What gets logged on the activity trail
When you save, each PO whose lines were appended gains a new entry in its Activity tab:
"N line item(s) were added to an existing shipment [reference]."
This event is separate from the "A shipment was built from this purchase order" entry that records initial shipment creation. Together they give a complete history of how a shipment's contents changed over time.
To view the activity trail for a PO, open the PO detail page and select the Activity tab.
Limitations
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| Shipment has reconciled receiving reports | Blocked in the picker. Build a new shipment for lines that arrived separately. |
| Selection spans multiple suppliers | Supported. The picker's supplier filter covers all of the selection's suppliers by default. |
| Shipment is closed | Hidden by default; enable Include closed shipments in the picker to reach it. |
| Single-PO detail view | The Add to existing shipment action is not available there — use the cross-PO Line Items view. |
Tips
- If you can't find the shipment you're looking for, try clearing the supplier checkbox or enabling Include closed shipments.
- Adding lines to a shipment does not create or update receiving reports — receiving is still done separately through a Receiving Report.
- The quantity columns in the Line Items grid (Ordered, Shipped, Remaining) all read in the same unit of measure, so the figures you see after saving are directly comparable.