Creating B2B orders using draft orders

Plan requirement

Shopify B2B is available only to stores on the Shopify Plus plan. For information about Shopify Plus plan pricing, contact us.

You can create draft orders for orders that your customers send directly to you by phone or email instead of through your online store.

If a draft order has a B2B customer and a company location assigned to it, then the prices, payment terms, and checkout options automatically reflect the settings for that company.

In this article you can learn how to create draft orders in B2B, how to lock and unlock pricing on a B2B draft order, and how to add local delivery or pickup in store for B2B draft orders.

Creating a draft order for a company

If a company submits an order with you outside of your Shopify store, such as by email or on the phone, then you can create a draft order for their purchase.

Create a draft order and collect payment immediately

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

2. Click Create order.

3. In the Customer section, select a B2B customer.

4. Select the company location that the order is for.

5. To add products, search for the product, and then click Add.

6. Optional: To add a purchase order number to your draft order, complete the following steps:

   1. In the PO number section, click the pencil icon.
   2. Enter a purchase order number, and then click Done.

7. Click Collect payment.

8. Collect payment for your draft order using one of the following payment methods:

   • If the customer uses a credit card as their payment method, then click Enter credit card, enter the credit card information, and then process the payment.
   • If the customer uses a different payment method, such as a check, cash, or money order, then click Mark as paid.
   • If the customer has a vaulted credit card, then click the credit card that you want to charge, and then click Charge to charge the amount displayed to the chosen card.

9. Click Create order.

Create a draft order and send an invoice to your customer for payment

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

2. Click Create order.

3. In the Customer section, select a B2B customer.

4. Select the company location that the order is for.

5. To add products, search for the product, and then click Add.

6. Optional: To add a purchase order number to your draft order, complete the following steps:

   1. In the PO number section, click the pencil icon.
   2. Enter a purchase order number, and then click Done.

7. To send an invoice, complete the following steps:

   1. In the Payment section, click Send invoice.
   2. Optional: Add a custom message to the invoice.
   3. Optional: To let your customer apply discounts when paying for this invoice, select Allow customers to apply discount codes when paying this invoice.
   4. Click Review invoice, and then click Send invoice.

8. Click Create order.

Create a draft order with payment terms

Note

If you are setting payment terms for a draft order that's in a different currency than your store currency, then you can only collect payment by credit card or by marking the order as paid.

You can create a draft order with payment terms. Payment terms let you set the date that payment is due on an order. You can also set up a percentage-based deposit requirement for your payment terms. If you add a deposit requirement to your payment terms, then your B2B customer needs to pay the deposit amount immediately after you send an invoice.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

2. Click Create order.

3. In the Customer section, select a B2B customer.

4. Select the company location that the order is for.

5. To add products, search for the product, and then click Add.

6. Optional: To add a purchase order number to your draft order, complete the following steps:

   1. In the PO number section, click the pencil icon.
   2. Enter a purchase order number, and then click Done.

7. Add payment terms to your draft order:

   1. In the Payment section, select Payment due later.
   2. From the Payment terms drop-down menu, select a payment term. If a company location already has payment terms set, then the payment term is automatically set according to the company location.

8. Optional: Click + Require deposit, and then enter a percentage amount deposit requirement, such as 20%.

9. Click Save.

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

Requiring orders to be placed as draft orders

If you want to review orders before you accept them, then you can require that customers submit their orders as drafts before you accept them. When you select the Submit all orders as drafts for review option, customers for that company location are displayed with a Submit for approval button in the checkout.

You can find orders from company locations that submit orders as draft orders in the Drafts page of your Shopify admin. These orders have their prices locked by default, and aren't complete until you click Create order or the customer submits payment after you send them an invoice.

Locking and unlocking product pricing on a B2B draft order

Note

Price lock prevents prices from being raised, but they also prevent prices from being automatically lowered on a draft order when product prices are permanently reduced.

You can lock prices on any draft order. A price lock ensures that the prices of products in the order don't change, even if you update the product's price later in the Shopify admin. You can lock prices when you need to maintain a quoted price to a customer despite any later changes to the product's price. By default, a draft order's prices are unlocked until you manually lock the prices on the draft order.

You can unlock product pricing at any time.

Lock product pricing on a B2B draft order

The pricing lock applies to all existing products in a draft order, and any products that you add to the draft order after the price lock is applied. Products that have their prices locked display a lock symbol beside their price in the draft order.

Note

Price locks aren't supported for product bundles. If you include a product bundle in a draft order, then its price can't be locked.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

2. Click an existing draft order or click Create order to create a new draft order.

3. After you add products to the draft order, in the Products section, click > Lock product pricing.

4. Click Save.

iPhone

1. From the Shopify app, tap the icon

   Draft orders.

2. Tap an existing draft order or tap + to create a new draft order.
3. After adding your products to the draft order, in the Products section, tap > Lock product pricing.
4. Tap Save.

Android

1. From the Shopify app, tap the icon

   Draft orders.

2. Tap an existing draft order or tap + to create a new draft order.
3. After adding your products to the draft order, in the Products section, tap > Lock product pricing.
4. Tap ✓.

Unlock product pricing on a B2B draft order

You can unlock product pricing at any time. When you unlock product pricing, the draft order updates with any price changes made to the original products, or updates based on a product catalog's most recent configured pricing.

You can also unlock product prices when you send an invoice or checkout link. When sending an invoice or sharing a checkout link, the pricing is set to lock by default unless you manually set it to be unlocked.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.

2. Click a draft order that you want to unlock product pricing for.

3. In the Products section, click , and then tap Unlock product pricing.

4. Click Save.

iPhone

1. From the Shopify app, tap the icon

   Draft orders.

2. Tap a draft order that you want to unlock product pricing for.
3. In the Products section, tap , and then tap Unlock product pricing.
4. Tap Save.

Android

1. From the Shopify app, tap the icon

   Draft orders.

2. Tap a draft order that you want to unlock product pricing for.
3. In the Products section, tap , and then tap Unlock product pricing.
4. Tap ✓.

Local delivery and pickup in store using B2B draft orders

If a draft order requires shipping, then you can do one of the following actions:

• choose a preset shipping rate
• create a custom rate
• choose local delivery or pickup in store

If a shipping method is preselected when the draft order is created, then the customer can't modify that shipping method during checkout. This applies to both B2B and D2C customers.

If a shipping method isn't preselected when the draft order is created, then the customer can select from the available shipping rates at checkout, but can't select local delivery or pickup in store. If you want your customer to pick up their order from one of your locations, then you must select an in-store pickup location when creating the draft order.