When the same SKU lives in four places, you do not need four spreadsheets. You need one count that knows where every unit sits and what it cost. Here is how to set that up.
The problem with multi-location inventory is not that it is hard to count. It is that no single system sees all of it. Amazon shows you FBA. Your 3PL shows you its warehouse. Your own shelves are in a spreadsheet. The units you shipped last week to replenish FBA are in nobody's count, floating in transit. ConnectStock, the multi-location inventory feature in ConnectBooks, exists to roll those scattered counts into one, with the cost attached. This walks through setting it up.
ConnectStock tracks units across FBA, 3PL, home warehouse, and in transit, applies FIFO cost per unit, and feeds the cost of each sold unit into per-channel P&L in QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, or Xero. It is bundled with the Platinum plan and available as an add-on on Gold and Diamond.
Start by listing every place a unit can physically live. For a typical multi-channel seller that is four buckets:
You own the units in all four. Custody is not ownership. The point of defining locations is not to split your inventory into separate assets, but to know where the one asset is sitting so you can plan replenishment and reconcile counts.
For every SKU, identify which locations currently hold units. A best-seller might live in all four at once: stock in FBA, backup at the 3PL, overflow in your warehouse, and a replenishment shipment in transit. A slow mover might only sit in one. ConnectStock holds the per-location count for each SKU so you can see, at a glance, that SKU ABC-123 has 220 in FBA, 140 at the 3PL, 60 in your warehouse, and 500 in transit, for a total of 920 units on hand.
That total is the number that feeds your inventory asset on the balance sheet. The per-location breakdown is the number that feeds your reorder decisions.
A count without a cost is half a number. Each unit has to carry the cost of the purchase order or production run it came from. ConnectStock maintains a FIFO cost queue per SKU: the oldest cost layer is relieved first when a unit sells, no matter which channel makes the sale or which location ships it.
This matters most when supplier prices move. If you bought one batch at $4.10 and a later batch at $4.85, ConnectStock knows which layer each on-hand unit belongs to and which layer to relieve next. When a unit sells, the right cost moves to COGS, not a guess or a blended average you did not choose.
Once locations, counts, and costs are set, the system does the ongoing work. When Amazon sells a unit, ConnectStock relieves it from the FBA count and posts its FIFO cost to COGS on the Amazon P&L. When Walmart sells a unit shipped from the 3PL, it relieves the 3PL count and posts the cost to the Walmart P&L. You are not journaling COGS by hand or guessing month-end inventory. The asset on your balance sheet draws down as units sell, per channel, with the correct cost each time.
At close, you verify three things tie out:
| CHECK | WHAT YOU COMPARE | PASS CONDITION |
| Units on hand | ConnectStock total per SKU vs physical or platform counts | Counts match within tolerance |
| Inventory asset | Units on hand times FIFO cost vs balance sheet | Asset value ties to the books |
| COGS | Cost relieved this period vs cost layers consumed | Per-channel COGS reconciles |
When all three tie, your inventory numbers are defensible for the tax return, for a lender, and for your own decisions. When one does not, the per-location, per-layer detail shows you exactly where the gap is, whether a shipment never got received into a location, a count drifted, or a cost layer was set wrong.
The manual alternative is a workbook with a tab per location, a monthly scramble to pull FBA inventory reports, an export from the 3PL, a hand count of your own shelves, and a best guess on in-transit stock, all stitched together with formulas that break the first time you add a SKU. It is slow, it is fragile, and it produces a number you cannot fully trust at the exact moment you need to trust it most, period close and tax time.
ConnectStock replaces that with one continuously updated count, costed per unit, reconciled to your books. The detail of why this matters across channels is in multi-channel inventory accounting (/blog-posts/multi-channel-inventory-accounting), and the reorder side is covered in safety stock and reorder point (/glossary/safety-stock-reorder-point).
FBA, 3PL, home warehouse, and in transit. It holds a per-location count for each SKU and rolls them into one total that feeds your inventory asset, while keeping the breakdown you need for replenishment decisions.
ConnectStock is bundled with Platinum. It is also available as an add-on on the Gold and Diamond plans, so you can attach multi-location tracking without moving to the top tier.
Yes. It maintains a FIFO cost queue per SKU and relieves the oldest cost layer when a unit sells on any channel. The correct cost moves to COGS, and the remaining inventory is valued at the more recent layers.
Yes. Units moving between locations, including replenishment shipments to FBA and inbound stock from suppliers, are tracked as in-transit inventory. They are your asset while in motion and are counted as such, so your total on-hand figure is complete.
ConnectStock feeds the inventory asset and per-channel COGS into QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, or Xero. As units sell, the cost posts to the right channel's P&L, so your books update without manual journal entries.
Track one SKU across four locations as a single, costed count. See ConnectStock plans at /pricing.
Running an e-commerce business comes with plenty of challenges, but ConnectBooks is here to make your life easier. With real-time insights, seamless integrations, and detailed tracking of your profitability and inventory, you can stay ahead of the game. Whether you’re selling on Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, TikTok or eBay, ConnectBooks helps you manage your finances with 100% accuracy and confidence, so you can focus on growing your business.
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