# Troubleshooting: Inventory Sync Groups

### ✅ Before you start (quick checklist)

* Refresh the page and wait 1–2 minutes (some updates are not instant).
* Confirm the products/variants are in the same Inventory Sync Group.
* If you use **Smart Scan**, confirm the SKU format is correct and consistent.

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### 1) Inventory is not updating

#### What you see

Inventory changes in Shopify, but the other grouped products don’t update.

#### Most common causes

* Inventory tracking is OFF for one or more variants.
* Inventory was updated in a location not used (or not the intended location).
* The products are not actually grouped (wrong variants selected).
* The change hasn’t been processed yet.

#### How to solve

1. Open Shopify **Products** > open the product > check **Inventory** section
2. Make sure **Track quantity** is enabled for the variants in the group
3. Confirm you updated inventory in the correct location
4. Go to **Tipo app > Inventory Sync Groups** and confirm the variants are included
5. Make a small test change (e.g., adjust by +1) and check again

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### 2) Wrong quantities after grouping

#### What you see

After creating a group, inventory numbers look unexpectedly high/low.

#### Why it happens

* When a group is created, the app needs a **single “shared quantity”** for the group.
* If variants had different inventory before grouping, the result may look “wrong” depending on how your store was set up.

#### How to solve

1. Decide what the correct shared inventory should be (example: “We have 100 total”)
2. Update the inventory for **one** variant to the correct value
3. Let the group sync apply the same number to the other variants
4. Re-check that all variants show the same inventory

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### 3) Products not detected by Smart Scan (Auto-group by SKU)

#### What you see

Smart Scan doesn’t create groups or misses products you expected.

#### Most common causes

* SKUs are empty for some variants
* SKUs don’t match exactly (spaces, lowercase/uppercase, extra characters)
* SKUs are unique (no duplicates = nothing to group)
* Only some variants share the SKU

#### How to solve

1. Export your product CSV (or open products) and check SKU values
2. Make SKU formatting consistent (example: `TSHIRT-RED-M`)
3. Re-run **Smart Scan**
4. If your SKUs are not designed to match, use [**Manual group creation**](https://docs.tipo.io/inventory-sync-groups/inventory-sync-groups/create-a-inventory-sync-group-manually) instead 

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### 4) Group conflicts (a product/variant appears in multiple groups)

#### What you see

A variant is already grouped and you can’t add it again (or syncing behaves inconsistently).

#### Why it happens

A single variant should belong to **only one** Inventory Sync Group to avoid conflicting inventory updates.

#### How to solve

1. Find the product/variant inside **Inventory Sync Groups**
2. Identify which groups currently contain it
3. Remove it from the old group (or delete the old group)
4. Add it to the correct group
5. Save and re-check inventory

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**🙋 Still need support?**

If you still need help, please feel free to contact us at <hi@tipo.io>. We’ll be happy to assist you further.