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Creating draft orders

When you need to create an order on behalf of a customer, you can create a draft order in your Shopify admin. You add the customer details and products, and then send an invoice, collect payment, or set payment terms.

When the order is paid for or when you set payment terms, the draft order converts to an order and is listed on your Orders page.

You can use draft orders to sell directly to consumers or to sell to other businesses. If you regularly sell to other businesses, then review all of Shopify's business to business (B2B) features.

Draft orders are useful when you need to do the following tasks:

  • Create an order so you can accept payment for orders later on that are placed over the phone, in person, or by email.
  • Send invoices to customers to pay with a secure checkout link.
  • Use custom items to represent additional costs or products that aren't displayed in your inventory.
  • Re-create orders manually from any of your active sales channels.
  • Sell products at discount or wholesale rates.

If you use Shopify Markets, then the local currency, pricing, duties, and taxes are determined by the market that's associated with the order. When more than one market is activated, the shipping address of the customer determines the market for the order. You can change the market on a draft order.

On this page

Create a draft order

Create a draft order on behalf of your customer and then send them an invoice for the order. By default, the invoice contains a link to a checkout, where your customer can pay for their order.

Draft orders can contain the following information:

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders.

  2. Click Create order.

  3. Add products to the order.

  4. Customize the order:

    • Add a customer
    • Apply discounts
    • Turn taxes on or off
    • Add tags or a note
    • Change the market to display a different local currency

  5. Do one of the following actions:

    • Send an invoice to the customer. By default, the invoice contains a link to a checkout that your customer can use to pay for the order.
    • Accept payment from the customer.
    • Set payment terms.
    • Save the order as a draft so that you can update it later from the Drafts page.

You can also create orders with pre-filled customer information from existing customer profiles.

Add products

  1. Open the draft order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Products section, do any of the following:
    • Enter the name of the product that you want to add to your order.
    • Click Browse to view a list of your store's products and collections.
    • Create a custom item for the order by clicking Add custom item.
  3. Select the individual products or variants that you want to include in the order.
  4. Click Add. To remove a product from the order, click the X button beside it in the Products section.
  5. Check the quantity that you have added to the order. If you add a product that has an inventory of zero and the product doesn't allow overselling, then you receive a message warning you of a stock problem if you manually collect a payment or specify payment terms. Customers trying to check out are notified that the item is out of stock and can't complete the sale.
  6. Optional: To reserve the products included in an invoice or a draft order, click Reserve items and then select how long you want the items to be reserved. This reserves any items that have inventory tracking activated, and updates them as Unavailable inventory your Shopify admin.

Set item or order discounts

If you want to apply a discount to the current order, then you can choose to discount the entire order or just individual items within it. Both item and order discounts are applied to the total price of the order - be careful not to duplicate the discount. Discount codes can't be applied at checkout for orders created as draft order invoices.

Apply a discount to an item

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Product section, click the price below the item's name.
  3. Set the discount as a currency amount, or a percentage of the listed price.
  4. Optional: Enter a reason for the discount in the Reason for discount text box.
  5. Click Apply.

Apply a discount to the entire order

Steps:

  1. From the Shopify app, tap Orders > Draft orders.
  2. Click Add discount.
  3. Set the discount as a currency amount, or a percentage of the total price. This discount is applied on top of any item-specific discounts.
  4. Optional: In the Reason for discount field, add a reason for the discount.
  5. Click Apply.

Add shipping

If the current order requires shipping, then you can choose a preset shipping rate, create a custom rate, or choose local delivery or local pickup.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. Click Add shipping.
  3. In the Shipping and delivery options dialog, select a shipping option:
    • To select from your store's available shipping rates, select Shipping rates, and then select an eligible shipping rate.
    • To choose a local shipping method, select Local delivery, or select Local pickup and then select one of your locations.
    • To create a custom shipping rate, select Custom, and then enter the custom rate's name and cost.
  4. Click Apply.

Add tags

You can organize your orders beyond whether they're captured, paid, and fulfilled by adding tags. You can filter orders by tag, and then save the order view for that tag so that you can quickly access those orders in the future.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Orders page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Tags section, enter the tag names separated by a comma. Order tags are limited to 40 characters (letters and numbers) per tag.
    1. To select from your previously used tags, click Manage.
    2. Click the tags that you want to add.
    3. Click Done to apply the tags to the order.

Add or remove taxes

By default, draft orders include taxes based on your store's tax settings and the customer's shipping address. If you don't have a shipping address on file, then taxes are based on the customer's billing address instead.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Payment section, click Estimated tax.
  3. Select or deselect Charge taxes.
  4. Click Apply to save your changes.

Add or remove a customer

Adding a customer is necessary if you want to use a location-based shipping rate for the current order.

Add a customer to a draft order

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Search or create a customer section, start entering the name of an existing customer or enter the name of a new customer.
  3. Click the customer to assign them to the order.
  4. If you're creating a new customer, then click Create a new customer.
  5. Fill in the applicable fields in Create a new customer.
  6. Click Save customer. This customer is now saved to your store.
  7. Click Save.

Change a customer's contact information

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Customer section of the order, click ..., and then click Edit contact information, Edit shipping address, or Edit billing address.
  3. Make any required changes.
  4. Click Save.

Remove a customer from a draft order

In the Customer section of the draft order, click ... > Remove customer.

This won't remove the customer from the customer list in your Shopify admin.

Set payment terms for payments due later

Payment terms let you set the date that payment is due on an order. You can set payment terms on draft orders, or you can add them to existing orders that have a Payment pending status.

You can choose from the following options when setting the payment terms:

  • Due on receipt: Use this option to set the payment as due on the date that you send the invoice to your customer.
  • Net term: Use this option to set the payment as due within the specified number of days from the issue date. For example, you can choose Within 30 days, and the payment due date is set to 30 days after the issue date. By default, the issue date is set to the current date, but you can change the issue date after you select a net term option.
  • Fixed term: Use this option to set the payment as due on a specific date.

If an order isn't paid by the due date, then the order status becomes Overdue.

After you set the payment terms, you can send an invoice or accept payment for the order.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the Payment section, select Payment due later.
  3. Select one of the following Payment terms:
    • To set the payment due on the day that you send the invoice, select Due on receipt.
    • To set the payment due within a time duration of an issue date, select one of the Within days options, and then enter the Issue date.
    • To set the payment due on a specific day, select Fixed date, and then enter the Due date.
  4. Click Create order.

If you create a draft order for a customer, then you can share a link to the checkout page for the order so that the customer can enter billing information, select a shipping method or local pickup, and submit payment. After the customer completes the checkout process using the link, the draft order becomes an order in the Orders page and is automatically marked as Paid.

There are two ways to share checkout links with your customers:

Send invoice

You can send an invoice to your customer with a link to the checkout page. Your customer can use the link in the email to enter billing information, select a shipping method or local pickup, and submit payment.

If you use Shopify Markets to sell internationally, then the currency on the invoice is determined by the market that's associated with the customer's shipping address. You can change the currency by changing the market.

You can also send invoices for orders with a Payment pending status. In one situation, you can't send an invoice when you set payment terms: If the draft order is in a local currency other than your store currency, then you can only collect payment by credit card or by marking the order as paid.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. Click Send invoice.
  3. In the Send invoice dialog, enter the message that you want to include in the invoice.
  4. Click Review invoice.
  5. In the dialog, review your invoice and click Send invoice.

You can create a draft order for customer requests initiated on social media apps, and then share a link to the checkout page with your customer.

Steps:

Accept payment

You can accept payment for draft orders by marking an order as paid if you have already received payment, or by accepting payment by credit card if you have your customer's billing information. When you accept payment for a draft order, it becomes an order on the Orders page.

You aren't charged third-party transaction fees for orders that are processed through Shopify Payments. You pay only the credit card processing fees when processing credit card purchases manually in your Shopify admin.

If you're using a supported direct credit card payment provider instead, then you pay the same third-party transaction fees when processing credit card purchases that you pay for online orders.

If you mark the order as paid and select a manual payment method, such as cash on delivery or bank deposit, then you do not incur third-party transaction fees for that order.

Mark payment as paid

If you've already received payment for the current order, or if you're importing a past order from another platform into your Shopify admin, then you can mark the order as paid. The received amount isn't captured again by your payment provider, and an order confirmation email is sent to the customer.

If you use Shopify Markets, then the value for Amount received is the value in the customer’s local currency converted to your store’s currency. The conversion is based on the live currency rate which fluctuates. For reporting purposes, if the amount you received is different than the amount displayed, then update it.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. Click Collect payment.
  3. Click Mark as paid.
  4. Optional: If the Amount received value is different that the amount that you received, then update the value.
  5. Click Create order.

You can access the order that you created on your Orders page.

Accept payment by credit card

If you have the billing information of your customer, or if your customer is available to enter it directly, then you can accept payment for the order by credit card. This payment method is only available with Shopify Payments.

Steps:

  1. Open the order from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin.
  2. Click Collect payment.
  3. Click Enter credit card.
  4. Enter the customer's billing and credit card information.
  5. Click Charge to confirm your payment settings and create an order from your draft order.

Local currency on draft orders

If you use Shopify Markets to sell internationally, then the local currency, pricing, taxes, and duties are determined by the market that's associated with the order.

The market that's associated with the order is determined by the shipping address of the customer. Adding a customer to the order updates the market and displays your customer's local currency.

On draft orders that display a local currency other than store currency, the foreign exchange rate is calculated when you create the draft order. This rate is fixed and used on the invoice regardless of whether the exchange rate changes. However, if you save the order as a draft and edit it afterwards, then pricing on the whole order is updated with the foreign exchange rate that's current at the time of the edit.

If you want to use different pricing and currency for a draft order, then change the market, but first, review the following impacts of changing the market on an order:

  • Taxes are included or excluded from item prices. For example, orders with a Unites States market exclude taxes from prices, while orders with a Great Britain market include taxes in prices.

  • Tax rates vary by market.

  • If you use a third-party service to determine the foreign exchange rate for a market, then pricing on an order is determined by the service’s exchange rate. However, the rate that Shopify Payments uses to calculate your payout is based on the market that's selected in Shopify. Therefore, the amount charged on the order can differ from the amount you receive in payment. For more information, refer to currency conversions and exchange rates.

  • Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): If you are obliged to sell a product at the MSRP in a customer’s market, then you could be in breach of contract if you switch markets and use an alternative market price.

Change the market for an order

If you use Shopify Markets, to change the pricing and currency on an order, change the market.

Before you change the market, review the impacts of changing the market on an order and review the following pre-requisites:

  • To see the Market card on an order, a market other than your primary market must be enabled.
  • To change to a particular market currency, that market must be enabled and local currency for the market must be enabled.

Steps

  1. In your Shopify Admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

  2. Select a draft order and open it.

  3. On the Market card, select Change.

  4. Select a country, and then select Change market.

  5. Select Update draft order.

Order pricing is in the customer's local currency except while you're making the following custom changes to the order:

  • If you add a custom discount, then the Discount value displays in store currency.
  • If you add a custom shipping price, then the Price displays in store currency.
  • If you add a custom item, then the Price displays in store currency.

After you make these custom changes, they are displayed on the order in the customer's local currency.

Duplicate an existing order

When you create a draft order, you can save time by duplicating an existing order or an existing draft order. The following scenarios are examples of where duplicating an existing order might be useful:

When you duplicate an existing order or a draft order, a new draft order is created with duplicates of the following information:

  • products - The duplicate line item contains the latest information for that product. If a product has been removed, then it won't be included in the duplicate draft order.
  • custom items
  • customer information - If the customer has been deleted, then a customer is created based on the email, billing, and shipping addresses.
  • email, billing, and shipping addresses
  • notes, note attributes, and tags
  • market

Discounts and shipping rates aren't duplicated in the draft order.

Steps:

  1. Open the order (or the draft order) from the Orders page in your Shopify admin.
  2. In the order (or draft order) details page, click Duplicate. A draft order is created with the same line items and customer information as the original order.
  3. Do one of the following actions:

If you save your order as a draft, then you can update it later from the Drafts page in your Shopify admin. When you accept payment for your draft order, an order is created for it on the Orders page.

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