On This Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Getting Started


After a customer has purchased or ordered a product from one of your Active Sales Channels, these products will appear and be customizable in your store's Orders Page. This page will focus specifically on processing these orders after a customer has purchased a product and updating the orders through the entire purchasing process. For more information on ordering and related actions, check out more at Shopify's Orders.


Creating Draft Orders is a useful tool when wanting to create premade orders and send invoices to customers or other businesses. You can add all of the customer or business details to the order and send an invoice. After the order has been marked as paid, it will appear as a completed order in the Orders page. For more information on creating draft orders for other businesses, check out Shopify's Business to Business (B2B) features.


Draft orders are useful when working with any of the following:

  • Creating orders for customers 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 the active sales channels
  • Sell products at discounts or wholesale rates
  • Take pre-orders
  • Save orders as a draft for working on later. These orders can be found and continued in the Drafts section


This page will focus on:

  • Creating Draft Orders
  • Setting Payment Terms for Payments Due Later
  • Sharing Checkout Links with Customers
  • Accepting Payments
  • Using Local Currencies on Draft Orders
  • Duplicating Existing Orders


Creating Draft Orders

You can create draft orders on behalf of your customers and then send them invoices for their orders. Unless otherwise stated, the invoice will hold a link that allows for the customers to pay and complete the order.


Some examples of what Draft Orders may contain:

  • One or more products
  • Discounts on individual items or the entire order
  • Shipping rates
  • Tag(s)
  • Applicable taxes
  • Customer(s)
  • Currency


For a video explanation of How to Create Draft Orders, check out the video below:


For step by step instructions, follow these steps:

  1. From your MyShopify page, go to Orders
  2. Select Create Order
  3. Add products to the order
  4. Customize the order with any of the following:
    • Add a customer
    • Apply discounts
    • Turn taxes on or off
    • Add tags or a note
    • Change the market to display a different currency
  5. Continue with one of the following actions:
    • Send an invoice to the customer
    • Accept payment from the customer
    • Set payment terms
    • Save the order as a draft for future updates, if needed


Step 4's Add a Customer can be totally skipped by using pre-made customer profiles


Adding One or More Products

Once an order has been saved as a draft, you can reopen the order for further customization. One such example is to add one or more products to the order. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. Open the draft order from the Orders > Drafts page in your store's MyShopify page
  2. Under the Products section, do any one of the following:
    • Enter the name of the product being added to the order
    • Click Browse to search through and add products to the order
    • Create and add a custom item to the order by selecting Add Custom Item
  3. Review products or individual variants
  4. Click Add to add products or variants. To delete unnecessary products, select the X next to the products in the Product Section
  5. Review the quantity of products in the order. If a product with an inventory of 0 is added and your store prevents overselling, you will receive a stock error message
  6. OPTIONAL: Products in invoices and draft orders can be reserved. This reserves any items that have inventory tracking enabled without adjusting their inventory quantity. In order to do this, select Reserve Items and mark how long the item is to be reserved


Setting Item or Order Discounts

Once an order has been saved as a draft, you can reopen the order for further customization. One such example is to set discounts either to individual items or the entire order. If you want to add a discount to an order, you can do this through adding discounts to items or the total order. Just be careful not to add the same discount code twice. Furthermore, discount codes cannot be added at checkout for drafted items; they must be added beforehand. 

To apply a discount to an item, follow these steps:

  1. Open the draft order from the Orders > Drafts page in your store's MyShopify page
  2. In the Products Section, select the price below the product
  3. Set the discount as a currency amount or percentage amount
  4. Click Apply


To apply a discount to an entire order, follow these steps:

  1. Open the draft order from the Orders > Drafts page in your store's MyShopify page
  2. Under the Payment Section, select Add Discount
  3. Set the discount amount as an amount or a percentage. This discount will be added to the total amount of the order
  4. Click Apply


Setting Shipping Rates

Aside from discounting items or orders, your store also has the ability to discount/adjust the shipping rates for orders.


To apply a custom discount to an order's shipping costs, follow these steps:

  1. Open the draft order from the Orders > Drafts page in your store's MyShopify page
  2. Under the Payment Section, select Add Shipping
  3. Select Custom and enter amount
  4. Click Apply


Adding Tags to an Order

If you are wanting to further organize your orders beyond captured, paid, or fulfilled, you can add Tags. These tags allow for orders to be further filtered and organized; remember that any filtering can be saved to Order Views for further use. In order to add tags to orders, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, open the Orders page
  2. From the Orders page, find and open the order that will be customized
  3. In the Tags Section, enter the tags, separated by commas, in the search bar. Order tags are limited to 40 characters per tag, including spaces
  4. If wanting to add previously used tags, select View All Tags and add the desired tags.
  5. Click Apply Changes
  6. Click Save


Adding or Removing Taxes

Normally, draft orders will include the appropriate taxes taken from both your store's tax settings and the customer's shipping address. If no customer address is given, taxes are based on the customer's billing address. In order to add or remove taxes, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, select Orders
  2. From the Orders page, open the desired order page
  3. In the Payment Section, select Estimated Tax
  4. Select or deselect the Charge Taxes tick box to add or remove taxes, respectively
  5. Select Apply to save changes


Adding or Removing Customers

If wanting to use location-based shipping or tax rates, adding a customer name is a must. A further benefit for customer order association is that it allows customers to unlock and gain rewards as they shop with your store. In order to add or remove customers, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, select Orders
  2. In the Customers Section, add or search for a customer in the search bar
  3. If creating a new customer, select Create a New Customer
  4. Input the new customer details and select Save Customer
  5. Click Save


To remove a customer from a draft order:

  • In the Customer Section, select the (...) next to the customer's name and select Remove Customer


Using Local Currencies in Draft Orders

If using Shopify to sell your store's products internationally, the currencies and duties will be determined by the market associated with the order. When draft orders display a currency different from that used in the store, an exchange rate is utilized. This exchange rate is maintained even if it varies slightly through time. If this drafted order is edited at any point afterwards, however, the currency exchange rate will be updated when future edits are saved. If your store is hoping to utilize different pricing, taxes, or currencies on a draft order, you can change the marketplace for a draft order; just be aware that there will be various consequences when doing this. Some examples of these consequences are:

  • Depending on the marketplace, taxes can either be included or separate from the total order costs. For example, in the United Kingdom, taxes are factored into costs, while in the United States, taxes are tacked on afterwards
  • Tax rates vary from market to market
  • Duties and fees are dependent on the chosen market, only after a customer has followed through with a purchase
  • Due to differences in exchange rates across different providers, the amount charged in an order may differ from the amount earned from an order. For more info, check out currency conversions and exchange rates
  • MSRP rates vary from market to market; any contractually obligated sales may differ and cause a breach in contracts depending on the marketplace being used


In order to change the market used in a draft order, follow these steps:

  1. From your MyShopify page, select Orders
  2. Select and open a draft order
  3. In the Market Section, select Change
  4. Select a new market country and click Change Market
  5. Click Save


Following this, all order pricing will appear in the customer's local currency except when making custom changes to the following:

  • A custom discount causes the Discount Value to display in the store currency
  • A custom shipping price causes the Price to display in the store currency
  • A custom item causes the Price to display in the store currency


After these changes are made, they will once again appear to the customer in their local currency.


Once a draft order is created, a checkout page for the order can be sent to the customer for completion.From here, the customer can enter billing information, select a shipping method, and submit payment. Once this is completed, the order will shift from being marked as draft to being marked as paid.


Sending Invoices to Customers

Once a draft order is made, your store has the opportunity to send an invoice to a customer in the form of a checkout link. In order to send customers invoices, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, select Orders > Drafts
  2. Find and open the specific draft order
  3. In the Payments Section, select Send Invoice
  4. In the Send Invoice dialog box, input the associated invoice message
  5. Click Review Invoice
  6. Click Save


Accepting Payments

You can accept payment for an order in one of two ways:

  • Marking an order as paid if you have already received payment
  • Accepting payment by credit card if you have a customer's billing information


After accepting payment for a draft order, it becomes a completed, paid order in your Orders page. 


If you are using the Shopify Payments model to process payments, you will not be charged any third-party fees. If you choose to manually enter in the payments through the Shopify admin, you will be charged for the credit card processing fees. If, however, your store is utilizing a supported direct credit car payment provider, then your store will be charged the same third-party transactions fees with credit card charges as with online orders. Your store will not pay any third-party transaction fees if an alternative method, such as manual payments is selected; this can include bank deposits or cash on delivery payments.


Marking an Order as Paid

If your store has already received payment for an order, or if your store is transferring a previously completed order from another sales software, you have the ability to mark this order as paid. This received amount will not be charged again by the payment provider; a confirmation email will be sent to the customer, however.


If your store is utilizing Shopify Markets, then the Amount Received value will be displayed as the customer's local currency converted to the store's currency using the current conversion rate. If there is a discrepancy between the current rate and the rate at the time of the order completion, you can manually update this.


In order to mark an order as paid, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, select Orders > Drafts
  2. Open the desired drafted order
  3. In the Payments Section, select Collect Payment
  4. Select Mark as Paid
  5. Select Create Order if the amount paid is correct, otherwise, update the amount in the Payments Section


Accepting Payments by Credit Card

If you are using Shopify Payments AND either your store has the billing information of the customer or the customer is available enter their billing information directly, your store can accept payment for the order via credit card. In order to accept payments by credit card, follow these steps:

  1. From your store's MyShopify page, select Orders > Drafts
  2. Open the desired drafted order
  3. In the Payments Section, select Collect Payment
  4. Select Enter Credit Card
  5. Input or have customer input their billing information
  6. Select Charge


Additional Information


For more information and insights on this topic, feel free to check out Shopify's Creating Draft Orders documents.