The units available for tracking quantity: weight, length, volume and count.
Sortly API
The Sortly API lets you work with your inventory from your own systems: add and update items, keep stock levels in sync, and track what goes out on a job.
Available on the Sortly Enterprise Plan. All requests go to https://api.sortly.co over HTTPS and return JSON. Email dev-support@sortly.com with questions or issues.
New here? Start with Getting Started, then read Items and Folders so the vocabulary in the endpoint reference makes sense. Once you know what you're building, jump to the matching Use Case Guide.
Goal: keep Sortly jobs in step with the work orders in your external system, from the moment one is raised to the moment it closes, so field staff work against accurate inventory and nobody keys the same movement in twice.
A job is a work order. Creating one also creates a folder to hold the items assigned to it. Jobs move through three statuses: not_started, in_progress, completed.
Each subsection below maps to one event in your system. Your system owns the job lifecycle and drives each of these calls; where you need to see the state on the Sortly side, read it with GET /api/v1/jobs on whatever schedule suits you.
Goal: keep Sortly purchase orders in step with the accounting or ordering system you buy through, so both sides agree on what was ordered, what it costs and where it has got to.
A purchase order records what you ordered from a vendor and on what terms, with a list of line items drawn from your inventory. You don't need to send amount, sub_total, total or line_number: Sortly works them out from the lines.
How an order moves:
draft,ready_for_reviewandapprovedcan each move to one another, or on toordered- From
orderedyou can requestvoidedorclosed - From
ordered, receiving stock also moves the order topartially_receivedand thenreceived, through the receive flow rather than a status call - From
partially_receivedorreceived, the only status you can request isclosed voidedandclosedare final
For the transitions themselves, see Manage PO Statuses.
Once you know what you need to buy, create the order and its lines in one call. Every line needs an item_id that already exists in this account; an unknown item or unit of measure returns 404.
Try it: POST /api/v1/purchase_orders
curl -X POST 'https://api.sortly.co/api/v1/purchase_orders' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"purchase_order_number": "PO-10042",
"currency_code": "USD",
"vendor": { "name": "Ace Supply", "email": "orders@acesupply.example" },
"line_items": [ { "item_id": 12345, "quantity": "20", "unit_rate": "4.50" },
{ "item_id": 12346, "quantity": "5", "unit_rate": "12.00" } ]
}'The order starts in draft. Leave purchase_order_number out and Sortly generates one; it must be unique in the account, so prefixing with your own order number avoids collisions and makes the order findable by that number later.
Keep the returned data.id against your system's order id, and keep the version.
To add or change lines afterwards, use the update endpoint. line_items replaces the whole list: a line with an id is updated, a line without one is added, and any stored line you leave out is removed.
curl -X PUT 'https://api.sortly.co/api/v1/purchase_orders/4471' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"currency_code": "USD",
"line_items": [ { "id": 881, "quantity": "24" },
{ "item_id": 12347, "quantity": "2", "unit_rate": "30.00" } ],
"version": 1
}'Fetch the order first and send back what you read with your changes applied: any nullable field you omit or send as null is cleared. Only a draft, ready_for_review or approved order can be updated.
When a draft is raised in the Sortly app, often off the back of a low stock alert, push it out to the accounting side for approval. See Track Stock Levels for the alert side.
1. Find the orders waiting to go out. Filter the list by status.
Try it: GET /api/v1/purchase_orders
curl 'https://api.sortly.co/api/v1/purchase_orders?status=draft,ready_for_review&per_page=100' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY'2. Fetch each one for its lines. A listed order leaves out notes, terms, sub_total and line_items, so read the ones you intend to push.
curl 'https://api.sortly.co/api/v1/purchase_orders/4471' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY'Post that to your accounting system, and store its id against the Sortly id so later steps can find their way back. When the order is approved on that side, reflect it in Sortly with Mark a PO as Approved.
When an order is approved and placed in your external system, create the matching one in Sortly so the warehouse team can receive against it.
1. Create the order exactly as in Create a Draft PO above. It arrives in draft.
2. Move it straight to ordered, passing the version from the create response. draft can go to ordered directly, so there is no need to step through the states in between.
curl -X PUT 'https://api.sortly.co/api/v1/purchase_orders/4471/status' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{ "status": "ordered", "version": 1 }'Sortly records ordered_date on that move. The order is now visible to the warehouse team for receiving.
Goal: move a Sortly purchase order to match where it has got to in your own process, whether that decision was made in another system or over email.
Every transition uses the same endpoint and the same two fields: the target status and the version you got from your last read.
- A stale
versionis rejected with409. Read immediately before writing, and retry with the new one. - Sending a status the order already has changes nothing, so a retried delivery is safe.
| From | Can move to |
|---|---|
draft, ready_for_review, approved | each other, or ordered |
ordered | voided or closed |
partially_received, received | closed |
voided, closed | final |
Anything outside that returns 400. received and partially_received cannot be requested here at all: Sortly sets them when a delivery is recorded against the order, either in the app or through the receive endpoint.
Items are the things you track: stock, tools, assets, supplies. Each one has a quantity and can carry a price, photos, tags and custom fields.
Items and folders share these endpoints; type is what tells them apart. Pass "type": "item" here. For the folder side of the same endpoints, see Folders.
Operations
Folders are how you organize inventory by location, category, job, or whatever fits how you work. They can be nested, and items live inside them.
Folders use the same endpoints as items, with "type": "folder" and no quantity or price. Nest one inside another by setting parent_id; leave it out for the top level. To list a folder's contents, pass its id as folder_id when listing items.
Operations
Purchase orders record what you have ordered from a vendor and on what terms. Each one carries vendor and ship-to details plus a list of line items drawn from your inventory.
How an order moves:
draft,ready_for_reviewandapprovedcan each move to one another, or on toordered- From
orderedyou can requestvoidedorclosed - Receiving stock moves an
orderedorder topartially_receivedand thenreceived, through the receive flow rather than a status call - From
partially_receivedorreceived, the only status you can request isclosed voidedandclosedare final
Use the status endpoint for these transitions rather than the update endpoint.
Operations
Aug 5, 2026. Added Purchase Orders: list, create, fetch, update and change status.
Jul 31, 2026. Added Jobs: list, create, fetch, update, change status and delete, plus adding items to a job and returning them.
Jun 17, 2021. Added yard and gallon units of measure.
Jun 5, 2021. Added support for item variants (Item Groups).
Jan 4, 2021. Renamed attribute_value to value on custom field values (attribute_value still works). Added tags to item reads and search.
Sep 1, 2020. Added the search endpoint.
Jun 15, 2020. Added alerts.
Mar 2, 2019. First release.