Creating draft orders

You can 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:

• one or more products
• discounts
• shipping rates
• applicable taxes
• a customer
• tags
• a market

Tip

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Create a new draft order

You can create a new draft order from the Drafts page of your Shopify admin. New drafts have no pre-filled order information, so you need to add all draft order details manually.

Steps:

Desktop

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

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.

Duplicating an existing order or draft order

When you create a draft order, you can save time by duplicating an existing order or an existing draft order. Review the following examples when duplicating an existing order might be useful:

• You often manually create orders for returning customers.
• You want to change or edit an existing order.

When you duplicate an existing order or a draft order, a new draft order is created with the following duplicate 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.
• The market.

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

Duplicate an existing order

You can create a draft order by duplicating an existing order in your Shopify admin.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders.
2. Click an existing order that you want to duplicate.
3. In the order details page, click Duplicate. A draft order is created with the same line items and customer information as the original order.
4. Optional: Modify the draft order with any new details.
5. When finished, do one of the following actions:
   • send an invoice
   • accept payment
   • save it as a draft

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.

Duplicate an existing draft order

You can create a draft order by duplicating an existing draft order in your Shopify admin.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.
2. Click an existing draft order that you want to duplicate.
3. In the draft order details page, click Duplicate. A new draft order is created with the same line items and customer information as the original draft order.
4. Optional: Modify the draft order with any new details.
5. When finished, do one of the following actions:
   • send an invoice
   • accept payment
   • save it as a new draft

If you save your order as a new 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.

Add products to a draft order

You can add products and product bundles to your draft order.

You can also choose whether or not to reserve the items in the draft order to ensure that the inventory can't be purchased by other customers.

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. In the Products section, do any of the following:
   • Enter the name of the product or product bundle 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.
4. Select the individual products or variants that you want to include in the order.
5. Click Add. To remove a product from the order, click the X button beside it in the Products section.
6. Check the quantity that you've added to the order. If you add a product with zero inventory and the product doesn't allow overselling, then an out of stock error is displayed to your customer when they try to complete the purchase.
7. Optional: Reserve the products included in an invoice or a draft order to prevent other customers from purchasing them.

Reserve items in a draft order

When you Reserve items in a draft order, those inventory units are put in the Unavailable inventory state and can't be purchased by other customers. The items that you reserve are dedicated to that particular draft order. If you don't reserve items, then the quantities stay in the Available inventory state and can be purchased by other customers. You can learn more about inventory states.

To reserve an item, inventory tracking must be activated for that product.

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 adding your products to the draft order, click Reserve items.
4. Select the date and time when the reserve will expire.
5. Click Done.

Add discounts to a draft order

You can apply discounts to a draft order in the following ways:

• Add an existing discount code to the order, along with eligible line items.
• Add all eligible automatic discounts.
• Add a custom amount off discount to the order.
• Add a custom amount off discount to individual line items.

Learn more about applying discounts to a draft order.

Add shipping to a draft order

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

To use a location-based shipping rate, you first need to add a customer and a shipping address to the draft order. After you add a customer, you can choose from the shipping rates in your store's shipping settings.

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. Click Add shipping or delivery.
4. 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 Pickup in store 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.
5. Click Apply.

Add tags to a draft order

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:

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. In the Tags section, enter the tag names separated by a comma. Order tags are limited to 40 characters per tag.
4. Optional: To select from your previously used tags, click the pencil icon and you can search your tags. Click Save to add the tags to your order.

Add or remove taxes from a draft order

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:

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. In the Payment section, click Estimated tax.
4. Select or deselect Charge taxes.
5. Click Apply to save your changes.

Add, change, or remove a customer from a draft order

You can add a customer, change the customer's information, or remove a customer from a draft order.

Add a customer to a draft order

You can add a new or existing customer to a draft order. Adding a customer is necessary when you want to use a location-based shipping rate for the current order.

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. In the Customer section, click the Search or create a customer field.
4. Add a customer to the order:
   • If you already have a customer profile for this customer, then type their name, and then click the customer's name from the drop-down options.
   • If you're adding a new customer, then click Create a new customer, enter their details, and then click Save customer. This customer is now saved to your store.
5. Click Save.

Change a customer's contact information

You can modify a customer's information from a draft order.

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. In the Customer section of the order, click …, and then click Edit contact information, Edit shipping address, or Edit billing address.
4. Make any required changes.
5. Click Save.

Remove a customer from a draft order

You can remove a customer from a draft order. This won't remove the customer from the customer list in your Shopify admin.

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. In the Customer section of the draft order, click … > Remove customer.
4. Click Update draft order to save the draft order.

Set payment terms for payments due later on a draft order

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.
• Due on fulfillment: Use this option to set the payment as due on the date that you fulfill all items in the order.
• 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.

Note

In one situation, you can't send an invoice when you set payment terms: when 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. There's no option to send an invoice to the customer from the order page.

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. In the Payment section, select Payment due later.
4. 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 on the day that you fulfill all items in the order, select Due on fulfillment.
   • 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.
5. Click Create order.

Local currency on draft orders

If you use International 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 pricing 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 pricing and review the following impacts of changing the pricing on an order:

• Taxes are included or excluded from item prices. For example, orders with the United States market exclude taxes from prices, but orders with the Germany market include taxes in prices.
• Tax rates vary by market. At checkout, if a customer changes the shipping address to an address that's outside the market, then the correct tax rate for the customer’s shipping address is charged, but the market on the order, with its tax included or excluded setting, is unchanged.
• 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 International and you want to change the pricing and currency for your order, then you need to change the pricing. The Market section for your order is displayed only when a market other than your primary market is activated. If you want to change to particular market pricing, then you need to activate that market and local currency for the market.

Before you change the pricing, make sure to review the impact of changing the pricing.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts.
2. Click a draft order that you want to edit.
3. In the Market section, click the pencil icon.
4. Select a market to apply its pricing to your draft order.
5. Click Change pricing.
6. Click Save.

Order pricing is displayed in the customer's local currency except when you make the following custom changes to the order:

• If you add a custom line item or order 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're displayed on the order in the customer's local currency.

Delete a draft order

You can delete draft orders whether the draft order is open or completed. Deleting a completed draft order doesn't delete the order created from the draft.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders.

2. Click Drafts.

3. Click the draft order that you want to delete.

4. Click Delete draft order.

5. In the modal, click Delete draft order to confirm and delete the draft.