About orders

An order records that a customer asked you for something and what happened next. It gathers what they wanted, whether you and they are agreed on it, and how each thing on it got to them.

An order is not a payment

They answer different questions, and mixing them up is the usual source of confusion:

• The order is the agreement: what was asked for, and whether it's still open.
• A payment is money arriving. It can come before the goods, after them, or in parts.

An order can be confirmed and fully paid while everything on it is still on the shelf. It can also be delivered and still unpaid.

Two things to track

On web, an order has three tabs:

• Order shows the customer, total and items.
• Getting to customer shows delivery or pickup details and each item's next step.
• Payment shows payment status, any remaining balance and refunds.

On your phone, the customer and total stay in a short summary. Below that, switch between Items, Getting to customer and Payment.

The order itself — pending, confirmed, completed or cancelled. This is about you and the customer being agreed.

An order that must be paid upfront, or needs a deposit, can't be confirmed until that payment is recorded. Its items can't start moving until then either. Orders paid on delivery, on pickup or later can be confirmed straight away.

Each item on it — how far that particular thing has got towards the customer: being prepared, ready, on its way, done. Different items reach a customer in different ways, so each one moves on its own.

You rarely mark an order completed yourself. Finish the last open item and Qcom completes the order for you.

Where orders come from

Your storefront, a conversation in the inbox, a payment link, or a member of staff writing one up. However it starts, it lands in the same place.

Order change rules

Open Changes and returns on an item or category, or Commerce on a Catalog type, to set its order-change rules. The item rule applies first, then the category rule, then the type rule. If none is published, customers can cancel only before confirmation.

You can set a cancellation stage and time limit, fee, refund, and whether customers may ask your team to review a request after the limit. Save draft keeps your edits private; Publish rules applies them to new orders. Existing orders keep the terms accepted when they were placed. Publishing the Catalog item does not publish these rules.

Fees and restricted refunds require team review. Cancelling an order does not itself issue a refund. Item and address changes also require team review; these settings do not promise stock or delivery availability.

Outside your opening hours

If you've set business hours in Settings → Business hours, customers can't place an order while you're closed. A closed date stops orders all day; special hours replace the usual hours on that date. Your store, bots, Qyra and WhatsApp order forms tell customers when you open instead. The cart still fills, so they can come back to it.

Staff can still write up an order at any time, including at the counter. No hours set means customers can order at any time.

Ordering in a conversation

Choosing products in chat is not yet a placed order. The assistant checks whether orders can be taken and asks for any missing delivery or pickup details that apply to those items. It then shows the order details and asks you to agree before placing it. Saying yes to a general offer to help is not that final step.

Prices keep the currency set for each item. A USD price does not become GHS because other products use GHS. An earlier issue being reviewed by the team does not prevent a separate purchase, but that review stays with the team.

Finding your way around

On the Orders page you can narrow to one kind of item, to how it reaches the customer, and to how far along it is. Anything that needs you shows as a confirmed order with items still open.

Open an order to review its saved choices and accepted terms. See Review choices saved with an order for variants, pre-orders and the delivery promise.

Who can do what

Orders are on the Starter plan and above, and need the Commerce permission. Recording a payment is separate again — see Record a payment on an order.

Related

• What each order status means
• Get an order to the customer
• When an order completes
• Record a payment on an order