SKUs whose on-hand count differs between Business Central (system of record) and commerce platform. Sync-failure detector.
At a glance
SKUs whose on-hand quantity differs between Business Central (system of record) and the commerce platform’s inventory feed. Sync-failure detector. Each row shows BC qty, commerce qty, drift, and likely cause.
| What it counts | For each Item synced to a commerce platform: BC.Inventory minus Commerce.Available per Location/Variant. Rows with absolute drift > 5 units OR > 10% of BC inventory appear. |
| Direction matters | BC > Commerce: oversold risk (commerce sells what BC says is gone). BC < Commerce: lost-sale risk (commerce shows out-of-stock when BC has it). |
| Reservations | BC counts available inventory net of Reservations; commerce platforms count available; the comparison is apples-to-apples. |
| In-Transit handling | Transfer-pending stock can show as available on BC but not synced; configurable. |
| Multi-Location | Card supports per-Location vs per-commerce-fulfilment-location mapping. |
| OData freshness | BC quantities pulled every 5 minutes; commerce platform inventory polled every 10 to 15 minutes (varies by platform API rate limits). |
| Time window | RT (real-time snapshot) |
| Alert trigger | any SKU drift >5 units (or 10%, whichever larger) for >24 hours |
| Sentiment key | inventory_drift |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Microsoft Dynamics 365 data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK omnichannel apparel brand on BC + Shopify Plus + BigCommerce B2B. Snapshot 14 Apr 26.| SKU | Variant | BC qty | Shopify qty | Drift | Direction | Likely cause |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| APPAR-DRES-NVY | Size S | 0 | 8 | -8 | BC < Commerce | Shopify still showing Q1 stock that already shipped |
| APPAR-COAT-WIN | Size XL | 14 | 0 | +14 | BC > Commerce | Shopify out-of-stock signal failed to refresh |
| APPAR-BAG-VEL | Pink | 32 | 18 | +14 | BC > Commerce | BigCommerce sync stalled 3 days ago |
| APPAR-SCRF-WOL | Check | 0 | 6 | -6 | BC < Commerce | Oversold risk |
| APPAR-SHIR-PRP | Size M | 24 | 12 | +12 | BC > Commerce | Shopify lost-sale risk on inventory level threshold |
| Top 5 |
- Two SKUs (Navy Dress, Wool Scarf) are oversold-risk: BC has zero, Shopify shows 14 units available. Customers can place orders the warehouse cannot fulfil. Action: pull Shopify inventory level via API, set to BC’s zero, refund any pending orders on these SKUs.
- Three SKUs are lost-sale-risk: BC has stock, commerce shows zero or low. Customers see “out of stock” and abandon. Most painful is APPAR-COAT-WIN at 14 units BC stock + 0 Shopify; if this SKU has any traffic, it is wasted.
- APPAR-BAG-VEL has 14 units drift on BigCommerce, sync stalled 3 days. Likely cause: BigCommerce API rate limit hit, the AL Extension connector logged retries but never recovered. Vortex IQ’s row carries the connector log timestamp.
- The pattern (BC > Commerce on multiple SKUs) suggests a connector-wide stall, not per-SKU error. Action: BC Functional Consultant to restart the AL Extension; one fix resolves all five rows.
- Cross-connector finding: of the lost-sale-risk SKUs, APPAR-COAT-WIN is being actively advertised on Google Shopping. The lost sale is funded by ad spend. See Dead Stock with Active Ad Spend for the inverse case (dead stock + ads); this case is even worse (live stock + ads + commerce showing OOS).
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Inventory Sync Drift |
|---|---|
| Total Inventory Value | The BC-side denominator. |
| OOS with SO Demand | Cross-connector: drifted-low SKUs with confirmed demand. |
| Dead Stock with Active Ad Spend | Cross-connector: drifted-high SKUs with ads. |
| Low Stock Alerts | BC-side stock warnings. |
| Commerce Orders Without BC SO | Same root cause family: connector misalignment. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Business Central:Item Card > Inventory tile (BC-side qty) AL Extension Connector Logs (last sync timestamp per Item) Commerce platform admin (Shopify Inventory, BigCommerce Catalog, Adobe Commerce Stock)There is no native “drift” view; the comparison is necessarily cross-platform. The card is the only systematic check. Why our list may legitimately differ from a manual spot-check:
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sync timing | Card 5-15 min behind reality | If a sale just happened on commerce but BC has not posted yet, drift appears transiently. |
| Variant mapping | Either | Commerce variants must map to BC Variants. Mis-mapped variants show as drift. |
| Multi-Location to fulfilment-location | Either | If commerce platform has multiple fulfilment locations, each must map to BC Locations explicitly. |
| Reservation handling | None | Both sides handle reservations consistently. |