Orders

Everything that moves inventory into, out of or around a warehouse goes through an order. A sales order ships products to a customer, a purchase order receives goods from a vendor, a transfer order moves stock between locations, and so on. Even a manual inventory adjustment is recorded as a small system order behind the scenes.

This section explains what orders are, which types exist, which states they move through and what happens automatically along the way.

How an order is built up

An order has three levels:

Level	What it is	Example
Order	The header: type, account, references, contacts, shipping method, dates.	Sales order #1A2B3C4D for customer Jansen
Order line	A product and a quantity, plus optional serial number, lot, expiry date, status and origin location.	Line 1: 3 × product TSHIRT-RED-M
Order line item	One single unit of a line. Each item has its own state and, once allocated, is linked to one physical inventory item.	3 items, of which 2 are allocated and 1 is backordered

Because every unit is tracked separately, one line can be partly allocated, partly picked and partly backordered at the same time. The counters on the order (Pending, Allocated, Picked, and so on) count these items. See Order lines and items.

The order list

Open Orders in the sidebar to see the order list.

• The list only shows orders that concern your current location: orders with a line that ships from it, or that are received into it. Switch location (see Navigating) to see the orders of another warehouse, or filter on Origin locations.
• The default view shows open orders only, meaning all orders that are not completed or cancelled.

Views

The view selector at the top of the table offers these preset views:

View	Shows
Default	All open orders
Sales orders, Purchase orders, Kit orders, Return orders, Scrap orders, Transfer orders	Open orders of that type
Allocated	Orders with at least one allocated item
Picking	Orders with items on a pick list that is being picked
Picked	Orders with picked items waiting to be packed
Packed	Orders with packed items
Hold	Orders with at least one item on hold

You can save your own views with the filters and columns you need.

Columns and filters

Available columns include Account, State, Type, Order number, Created at, a counter for each item state (Expected, Backordered, Pending, Allocated, Picking, Picked, Packed, Shipped, Received, Hold, Cancelled), Received at, Channel, Business model, Ship at, Customer reference number, Purchase order number, Other reference number, Shipping container number, Customer, Vendor, Origin locations, Destination location and Totes.

You can filter on account, state, type, channel, business model, origin locations, destination location and totes. For orders that contain kits, the counters show complete kits instead of individual components.

Row actions and batch actions

Depending on the order's state and your role, a row shows quick actions:

Action	Shown when
Confirm	The order is in concept
Allocate	A sales, transfer or kit order has pending or backordered items
Pick	A sales, transfer or kit order has allocated items
Pack	A sales or transfer order has picked items
Receive	A purchase, return or add inventory order has expected items
Build	A kit order has picked components ready to build

Select several orders to Confirm, Allocate or Pick them in one go. Orders that could not be processed are listed in a notification.

Creating and importing

The menu (the ellipsis at the top right of the order list) has New purchase order, New kit order, New sales order, New return order, New scrap order and New transfer order. The last one only appears if you have access to more than one location. Import lets you upload orders from a spreadsheet, and Bulk pack and ship opens the bulk pack and ship screen. See Creating and importing orders.

The order page

Click an order to open it. The page has these parts:

1. Header card with the order type and number, its state, account and creation date. The buttons in the header (and the same actions in its menu) only show when the action is possible right now and you are allowed to do it: Edit, Confirm, Allocate, Unallocate, Pick, Unpick, Pack, Unpack, Receive, Build, Hold, Cancel, Anonymize and, for completed sales orders, Create Return Order.
2. Header tabs: Overview (state, dates, business model, channel, shipping method, carrier, service type, delivery terms, references, destination location, notes, packing instructions, gift message), one tab per filled-in contact (Delivery, Billing, Pickup), and Vendor, Customer, Location and Metadata tabs when they apply.
3. Lines card with the tabs Lines, Items, Pricing and values and, where relevant, Product components (sales orders with kits) and Built items (kit orders).
4. Comments, where users can leave notes on the order for each other.
5. Other card with Related orders, Picklists, Shipments, Tickets, E-mail notifications, Integration messages and Papers. Tabs only appear when there is something to show.

The page updates live: when a background job finishes (for example confirmation or allocation), the page refreshes by itself.

Most actions run in the background

Confirming, allocating, picking and cancelling are processed by background jobs. You get a notification ("Order … is being confirmed", "Cancelling for order …") straight away and a second one when the work is done or has failed.

Who can do what

Action	Roles
View, create and edit orders	Every user with access to the account
Confirm	Every user except Kitter
Allocate, Unallocate, Hold	Admin, Warehouse associate, Account owner
Cancel	Admin, Warehouse associate, Account owner (not Kitter)
Pick	Admin, Warehouse associate, Pick list planner
Unpick, Unpack	Admin, Warehouse associate
Pack	Admin, Warehouse associate, Packer
Receive	Admin, Warehouse associate, Receiver
Build (kit orders)	Admin, Warehouse associate, Kitter
Anonymize	Admin, Warehouse associate
Import orders	Admin, Account owner

"Account owner" also includes the Shopify account owner role. See Users and roles.

In this section

• Order types: the eight order types and how they differ.
• Order lifecycle: every state of orders, lines and items, and what triggers each change.
• Creating and importing orders: the order form, defaults, validations and spreadsheet imports.
• Order lines and items: what you can put on a line and how items are tracked.
• Allocation: how Boxture reserves inventory, automatically or by hand.
• Backorders: what happens when there is not enough stock.
• Holds: manual and automatic holds and how to release them.
• Cancelling: cancelling whole orders or parts of them.
• Anonymization: removing personal data from finished orders.
• One page per order type: sales, purchase, return, transfer, scrap, kit and inventory orders.