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Orders

A sales order says what a customer bought, at what price, and everything that has happened to it since: stock held, parcels picked, packed and shipped, invoices raised, payments taken and refunds given.

An order through its pipeline: picked, shipped, paid — the timeline ticks each stage.

The Orders screen

Orders are under Orders in the sidebar. The list shows every order that has been placed: ones you took in the admin, ones a sales channel such as Shopify sent, and ones made through the API. The Source column says which. Quotes are kept apart, under Quotes, until they are placed. To find an order, type in Search and filter at the top of the list.

The tabs narrow the list by status. Awaiting stock is the order's status when it is short and nothing has shipped. The Backordered tab also includes partly shipped orders still short on a line.

The menu beside the search narrows it by where the order came from:

All orders
Everything.
Placed in Manifold
Orders taken here, or sent here by a sales channel or the API.
From before Manifold
Past orders imported from your old system, kept as history.
Mirrored, still open
Orders still open in your old system, copied here and kept up to date. You can view them but not work them until you go live.

Taking an order

  1. Press New order.
  2. Under Customer, choose who it is for and their shipping and billing addresses. A customer is optional. If the company has a catalog, it is chosen for you.
  3. Under Catalog, choose the catalog it is Priced from. The order is in that catalog's currency.
  4. Under Products, press Add line for each item and set the quantity. The unit price fills in from the catalog. Type over it to charge something else, and give a reason if you like; the line keeps the list price beside yours.
  5. Under Payment, add any shipping charge and an order-level discount. Tax is worked out when you save, from the rates under Settings › Tax.
  6. Under Reference, enter the storefront or channel order number if there is one. Saving twice with the same reference gives you the same order, not two.
  7. Press Place order. Every line needs a price; zero counts. To keep working on it, or to quote it first, press Save as draft. That makes a draft quote, not an order.

While the form has unsaved changes, Manifold will not let you leave. The bar at the top offers Discard or Save. Save keeps the work as a draft quote; it never places an order.

Lines

Each line is one item at one price. The same SKU can sit on two lines: an engraved one and a plain one, say. Press Add personalisation on a line to give it a detail (for example Engraving and its text); it is shown with the line on its shipments and refunds. Shopify line-item properties arrive as details.

The line table on the order shows, for each line, how many units are Ordered, Allocated (held in stock for this order), Picked, Packed, Dispatched, Invoiced and Returned. A kit shows its components under the SKU. A line priced away from the catalog carries an edited badge; hover it to see who changed the price, when and why.

Prices are fixed once the order is placed. Editing the catalog later never changes an order you already have.

Statuses

Open
Placed, and nothing has shipped yet.
Awaiting stock
Some lines could not be covered and nothing has shipped. The Awaiting stock card on the order lists what is short.
Partially shipped
At least one parcel has left, and more is to come.
Shipped
Every line has shipped.
Cancelled
Withdrawn. Any stock still held for it is released.

The Payment column has its own badge: Unpaid, Partially paid, Paid, Partially refunded or Refunded. It is worked out from the payments and refunds recorded on the order.

The pipeline

Every order runs allocate → shipment → pick → pack → ship → invoice. Under Settings › Workflow you choose which of pick, pack, ship and invoice you do by hand (manual) and which happen on their own (auto), and whether invoicing is on at all.

By default, pick and ship are manual, pack is automatic (recording the pick also packs the parcel), invoicing is off, and an order short of stock waits. Packing cannot be manual when picking is automatic.

An order keeps the workflow it was placed under. Changing the settings affects new orders only. The Order pipeline card on each order shows its own steps, ticked as every unit reaches them.

Allocate (hold stock)
Placing the order holds stock for it straight away. If there is not enough, your shortfall setting decides: wait holds the whole order until stock arrives; split ships what there is and backorders the rest. Allocation runs again by itself when stock is received. To run it now, press Allocate stock. The Awaiting stock card lists what is short; see Purchasing for receiving it.
Shipment
Press Create shipment to open a parcel over everything allocated. Open a shipment's lines to see the site each Ships from. To send a pending parcel from another site, press Move… on its line, pick the site and press Move hold.
Pick
Press Pick… on the shipment and Record pick. Serial- and batch-tracked items ask which units went in the box. With packing on auto, this also packs the parcel.
Pack
Shown only when packing is set to manual. Add the cartons the parcel went into and press Pack. If you have carrier accounts set up, you can quote and book from here.
Ship
Press Ship…, enter the carrier and tracking number (filled in for a booked parcel), and press Authorise despatch. The stock leaves inventory at this point.
Invoice
With invoicing set to manual, press Issue invoice. With auto, the invoice is raised when the parcel ships. With off, the step is shown struck through. Invoices are listed under Invoices on the order. Manifold does not email or print them yet.

Payment terms

Each order has its own terms, shown at the foot of the Payment card:

On account
Parcels leave whether or not the order is paid.
Prepaid
Parcels wait at packed until the order is paid in full. Shipping by hand is refused. If shipping is automatic, the payment that clears the balance ships the packed parcels.

Manifold sets the terms when the order is created:

  1. A Shopify order, by how the buyer paid. On payment terms, a card authorised but not yet captured, or cash on delivery: On account. Payment still pending, such as a bank deposit: Prepaid. Paid at checkout: Shopify sets nothing, and the next rules apply.
  2. A company with payment terms (Payment terms (days) on its page under Companies): On account.
  3. Everyone else: Default payment terms under Settings › Workflow.

The note under the terms says which applied. To change one order, press Ship before payment or Hold until paid beside the terms on the Payment card. Releasing a held order ships its packed parcels at once when shipping is automatic. With manual shipping, ship the packed parcels yourself.

Payments

  1. Press Record payment….
  2. Enter the amount, the method (Card, Cash, Bank transfer, Store credit, Gateway or Other), the gateway's or bank's reference, and a note if needed.
  3. Press Record payment.

A payment cannot be more than the Balance owed. A cancelled order takes no payments. Payments Shopify collects are recorded for you, including part payments.

Refunds

  1. Press Refund….
  2. For each line coming back, enter the quantity. Tick Restock to put it back in stock, and set its condition: sellable goes back on the shelf, damaged is kept aside. Tracked items ask for the serials or batch.
  3. Enter the refund amount, then a reason. Leave every line at zero for a money-only refund, such as shipping refunded for a late delivery.

    The refund amount is in cents, not dollars. Type 1250 to refund $12.50. Payments take dollars; refunds do not, yet.

  4. Press Refund.

You can refund only what the order has been paid, less earlier refunds, and only units that have shipped and not come back. Tax is reversed only where it was invoiced.

Discounts

In the admin, give a line a lower price by typing over it, or enter a Discount on the order. Discounts on a single line come from Shopify or the API.

  • On a line: money off that line, with the code or title as its reason. Shopify discount codes arrive this way. The amount is shown beside the line's price.
  • On the order: the discount you enter when taking the order, or a shipping discount from a channel. It is split across the lines, and each line total notes its part.

The Payment card lists every discount and takes the sum off the total.

Changing an order after it is placed

You cannot change a placed order's lines in the admin yet. Edit the order in Shopify and the change is applied here, or ask an AI agent: "On SO-00042, make WIDGET-BLUE 4 units instead of 6 and add 2 of WIDGET-RED." Otherwise, cancel the order and take a new one. Each change is listed under Edits on the order.

An edit can add or remove a line, change a quantity, a line's discount, the shipping charge, the order's discounts or the shipping address.

  • Units already picked, packed or shipped are never changed. To reduce them, cancel the parcel first.
  • Removing or reducing a line releases the stock held for it. A removed line stays on the order, struck through.
  • An added line is allocated at once. A shipped order goes back to partially shipped, and the new parcel goes through pick, pack and ship.
  • The totals are worked out again. If the order now comes to less than was paid, the Payment card shows Refund owed. Settle it with Refund….
  • A cancelled order takes no edits.

Cancelling

Press Cancel order. It takes effect straight away, with no confirmation step, and cannot be undone. Stock still held is released. Parcels that already shipped are not recalled.

Refund any payment before you cancel. Payments stay on a cancelled order, and the admin no longer offers Refund… on it.

Before you go live

If your orders are kept in step with your old system while you try Manifold, you can view them but not change them until you go live. Until you go live, Manifold also does not tell your sales channels about shipments, and does not email customers. See Going live.

Who can do it

Taking orders and quotes, picking, packing and shipping them, cancelling and refunding need permission to change orders: the Fulfilment role has it, and so do Store and Wholesale rep. Recording a payment and changing an order's payment terms need permission to record payments: the Finance and Store roles. Owners and admins can do everything. See Team.

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