Confirm a new order and start preparing it

A new cash on delivery order waits at Awaiting confirmation until you accept it. This article shows how to check it, confirm it and move it to Preparing: in two clicks from the order page, with a note from Manage order, or straight from your orders list.

Check the order first

Confirming tells your team to pack the order and takes its items out of your stock, so look at it before you do. Open it from your orders list (opens in a new tab): select its row, then Open full order in the preview. On the Overview tab, check the following. Line items and Order notes start folded: select a section's title to open it.

Line items — the products, variants and quantities.
Customer — a complete address and a phone number your delivery provider can call.
Order notes — any internal note your team left, such as "Call before confirming — she often adds a hijab."
Payment — Awaiting collection for a cash on delivery order; Paid for a card order.
Chips under the customer's name, such as High value. See Why does an order need attention?

If the address or phone is wrong, correct it first with Edit customer and address on the Operations tab; you can do that until a shipment is created. The items and prices cannot be changed once the order is placed. If the customer wants something different, cancel the order and ask them to order again. See Edit an order's address, notes or tags and Read an order page.

Tip

For cash on delivery, a quick call to confirm the size, the address and the cash amount saves a parcel coming back refused.

A card order usually skips this step: when its payment succeeds, it is confirmed for you and arrives as Ready to prepare. A paid card order stays at Awaiting confirmation only when the amount captured does not match the order or an item ran out before the payment arrived. See How order stages work.

Confirm and prepare in two clicks

The fastest way is the Next step button at the top of the order.

From the orders list to Preparing: open the new order, check it, select Confirm, then Prepare when you start packing.

Open the order from your orders list.
On the Overview tab, under Next step, select Confirm. "Order status updated." confirms it, the stage changes to Ready to prepare and the button becomes Prepare.
When your team starts packing, select Prepare. The stage changes to Preparing and the next step becomes Mark ready.

These buttons act at once, with no second question and no note. To leave a note with the change, use Manage order instead.

What confirming does

Stock — each item leaves your stock now, not when the customer ordered. Every variant that has Track inventory on gets a line in its Stock history naming the order. See Adjust stock and see its history.
Activity — Order confirmed appears in the order's Activity timeline with your email and any status note.
Customer — no new email. The customer got the order confirmation email, with the invoice attached, when they placed the order, and confirming does not send it twice. Moving to Preparing sends nothing either. See Emails your customers get about orders.
Order webhook — if you have set an Order webhook URL in your settings, it is told the order is confirmed. See Set your fulfilment SLA and stock alerts.
Fulfilment clock — it keeps running from when the order was placed. Confirming does not restart it.

The Operations tab and Manage order

Manage order is the card for moving an order on by hand, with a note if you want one.

Open the order.
Select the Operations tab.

The Operations tab of an order awaiting confirmation: the Manage order card with Next status set to Confirm, an empty Status note, Update status and Cancel order; below it the Internal order note card — Manage order is the first card on the Operations tab.

Manage order has the Next status menu, the Status note box, Update status and Cancel order. Cancel order shows only for roles with the Cancel orders permission. Its line reads "Move the order forward, add an internal note, or cancel it before fulfilment starts."

The rest of the tab holds the other things you can change on the order:

Card	What it is for
Internal order note	A note for your team that stays on the order and prints on the packing slip.
Edit customer and address	Correct the customer's name, email, phone and address before a shipment exists.
Order tags	Labels such as VIP, rush or wholesale.
Refund payment	Refund all or part of a captured payment. See Refund an order in full or in part.
Mark manual payment paid	Record cash collected on delivery or a bank transfer. See Record cash collected on delivery.
Return requests	Review a return, or create one for the customer. See Handle a return.

The whole Operations tab of a new order: Manage order, Internal order note, Edit customer and address, Order tags with VIP, Refund payment with No refundable payment, Mark manual payment paid, and Return requests — Every card on the Operations tab, top to bottom.

Choose the next status

Next status offers only the one step the order can take now, and it is already chosen for you. An order cannot skip a step.

The order is at	Next status offers	The order moves to
Awaiting confirmation	Confirm	Ready to prepare
Ready to prepare	Prepare	Preparing
Preparing	Mark ready	Ready to ship
Delivered	Complete	Completed

On a cash on delivery order, Complete is offered as soon as the parcel is delivered, even before you record the cash. Record the cash first with Mark collected; an order completed without it stays at COD to collect and in the COD orders view until you do. See Record cash collected on delivery.

Manage order on a preparing order with the Next status menu open, offering one option: Mark ready — A preparing order has one way forward: Mark ready.

Mark ready only when the parcel is packed and waiting for the delivery provider. From then on, the order moves with its shipment.

Add a status note

Status note is optional. Type up to 1,000 characters about this change, such as who you spoke to or what the customer agreed.

Manage order with Next status Confirm and the status note Called Rasha — she confirmed the size. — A note that records why the order was confirmed.

Where the note goes:

It appears under the status change in the order's Activity timeline, with your email, so your team can see why the order moved.
On Confirm, it also becomes the reason on the Stock history lines of the items the order takes out of stock, in place of the usual wording.

Note

The hint in the box mentions the status email, but the note is not included in any email to the customer: it stays in your console. To keep a note on the order itself, one that prints on the packing slip, use Internal order note instead.

Update status

Check that Next status shows the step you want.
Type a Status note if you want one.
Select Update status. It reads "Saving…" while it works.

"Order status updated." appears at the bottom of the screen and the card offers the step after it: once you confirm, Next status shows Prepare. The note box empties, ready for the next change.

If the order cannot move, it stays where it was. A message at the bottom of the screen says why, and the card shows "Could not save changes." in red:

Message	Why	What to do
"This order status change is not allowed."	Someone else moved or cancelled the order since you opened it.	Reload the page to see where the order is now.
"Insufficient stock for SKU '…'."	A variant on the order has less stock than the order needs.	See the warning below.

Warning

Stock is checked when the customer orders, but taken only when you confirm. If another order took the last pieces in between, confirming fails for the SKU named in the message, unless that variant has Allow backorder on. Add the stock you really have and confirm again, or cancel the order and tell the customer. See Adjust stock and see its history and Cancel an order.

When the order moves on with its shipment instead

Once an order is Ready to ship, Manage order offers no next status: Shipped, Out for delivery and Delivered come from the shipment. The card tells you where to go:

"This order moves on with its shipment. Create the shipment under Fulfilment." — no shipment exists yet. See Ship an order with a tracking number.
"This order moves on with its shipment. Update the shipment under Fulfilment." — a shipment exists. See Update a shipment's status.

Manage order on a ready-to-ship order: This order moves on with its shipment. Update the shipment under Fulfilment., with Cancel order under it — No next status here, but the order can still be cancelled.

Cancel order stays on the card until the delivery provider picks the parcel up. After that, the card shows No next status with the same message and no cancel button. See Cancel an order.

A team member whose role does not include Cancel orders sees the same: on an order whose only possible change is cancelling it, such as a ready-to-ship order, the card shows No next status and the message about the shipment, with no Cancel order.

Manage order for a role without Cancel orders, on a ready-to-ship order: No next status — This order moves on with its shipment. Update the shipment under Fulfilment. — Without Cancel orders, the card points to the shipment and offers no cancel button.

You do not have to go through Preparing and Ready to ship by hand. Creating a shipment for an order that is Ready to prepare or Preparing moves it to Ready to ship in the same step.

When there is nothing left to move

When the order cannot move, the card says why: under No next status when nothing at all is possible, or in a notice above Cancel order when the order can still be cancelled.

Manage order on a completed order: No next status — This order has reached its final status, so there is no next status to apply. — A completed order: nothing left to change.

Message	When you see it
"This order has reached its final status, so there is no next status to apply."	The order is completed, cancelled, refunded or returned, or its card payment failed.
"This order moves on once the payment arrives."	A card order is Awaiting payment. Cancel order is still offered.
"No status change is available for this order right now."	Any other case where the order cannot move. Check its Next step on the Overview tab.

From the list: confirm from a row

You can confirm or prepare an order without opening it:

In the Next action column, select Confirm or Prepare on the order's row.
Or select ⋯ at the end of the row and choose Confirm or Prepare in the order actions menu.

The order moves at once, with no second question, and "Order status updated." confirms it. The row then shows the new stage and its next action.

The orders list after Prepare was chosen from a row: Dalia Hourani's order now reads Preparing with Mark ready as its next action, and the message Order status updated. — The row moves on in place: Preparing, next Mark ready.

From the list you cannot add a status note; open the order and use Manage order for that. To confirm or prepare many orders in one go, see Update several orders at once.

Changing an order's status needs the Update order status permission, and cancelling it needs Cancel orders. The store owner, store manager and sales staff roles have both. See Staff roles: what each one can see and do.

Next, print the packing slip for the order you are preparing, or ship it with a tracking number.