Learn how to process various types of orders depending upon the number of shipments, and dealing with missing products and complaints with no exchanges.

When a new order arrives in your online store you must process it.

Careful order processing is important, as the store's sales and bookkeeping reports are compiled based on the status of orders. Also, when the number of orders goes up and you fail to keep their statuses up to date, you will find it difficult to keep track of all shipments, payments, and stock balances.

The processing includes the following steps:
  • verifying payments made by the customer
  • marking the order's shipments as shipped
  • printing order documents
  • creating gift cards if the order contains gift card products.

There are multiple ways in which orders can be processed depending on the number of shipments. You can learn here about the most common tasks related to order processing.

Delivering in a single shipment

Orders delivered in a single shipment can either be processed step-by-step or in one go by running quick processing. Both methods are discussed below.

Order quick processing

Order quick processing means that all the basic tasks related to order processing can be performed with a single click. This allows you to save time and avoid repetitive work.

Don't use quick processing with backorders and partial shipments. Mark individual shipments one by one as delivered.

To run quick processing:

  1. In the right-hand Payment transactions pane, make sure that the customer has made all required payments.

    In the case of some payment services (e.g. Klarna), you must activate payments during order processing so that they can be settled in your online store's bank account.

  2. At the top of the order page, click Quick process order.
    Quick processing does the following:
    • The entire order's status is changed to Delivered and the order is hidden from the list on the Orders page.
    • Klarna Checkout payments are activated.
    • The customer is sent the shipping confirmation
    • A shipping label is created for the order. If the order uses a shipping service (e.g. Shipit or nShift), MyCashflow creates a shipping label that can be used with that service.

    Quick processing may fail in the following cases:

    • The order covers more than one shipment. In that case you need to handle the shipments one by one (see Processing partial shipments and backorders).
    • There is no shipping method for the shipment.
    • No collection point has been specified for the shipment, even though collection points are used by the selected logistics service.
    • No customs information has been provided for the shipment, but the selected logistics service requires it for certain international shipments.
    • There is an interruption in the logistics integration, or an error has occurred in processing the shipment.
  3. Print the relevant order documents for the shipment.

    You can print the shipment's address label and dispatch note as well as any customs documents in the Shipping details section of the order page.

    The documents for the entire order (the receipt, the return form and the entire order's dispatch note) can be found in the Print order documents menu at the top of the order page.

    If your order uses the MyCashflow Invoice payment service, you can open the PDF invoice for printing in the Payment transactions section on the right-hand side of the order page.

    Read more about order and shipment documents.

  4. If order archiving is enabled in your online store, archive the order to bookkeeping once you're sure that you will no longer have to edit it.

By default, orders that have been processed are no longer displayed on the Orders page. To view them, you can use the order search and set the value of the Status field to Delivered.

Processing orders step-by-step

If an order cannot be processed by running quick processing, you can process it step-by-step.

You can see below on a step-by-step basis how to process an order with a single shipment.

  1. In the right-hand Payment transactions pane, make sure that the customer has made all required payments.

    In the case of some payment services (e.g. Klarna), you must activate payments during order processing so that they can be settled in your online store's bank account.

  2. In the shipment's heading row, click Mark as shipped and send shipping confirmation.
  3. Print the relevant order documents for the shipment.

    You can print the shipment's address label and dispatch note as well as any customs documents in the Shipping details section of the order page.

    The documents for the entire order (the receipt, the return form and the entire order's dispatch note) can be found in the Print order documents menu at the top of the order page.

    If your order uses the MyCashflow Invoice payment service, you can open the PDF invoice for printing in the Payment transactions section on the right-hand side of the order page.

    Read more about order and shipment documents.

  4. If order archiving is enabled in your online store, archive the order to bookkeeping once you're sure that you will no longer have to edit it.

Once all shipments in the order have been marked as delivered, the entire order's status changes to Delivered.

By default, orders that have been processed are no longer displayed on the Orders page. To view them, you can use the order search and set the value of the Status field to Delivered.

Processing partial shipments and backorders

If any of the order's products have run out of stock or the order should for some reason be delivered in multiple shipments, divide the order into multiple shipments and process them one-by-one.

  1. From the order's dispatch list, select those products that should be shipped in the first batch.
  2. In the shipment's heading row, click Create partial shipment.

    A new shipment with the selected products has been created for the order. The original shipment's details have been copied for the shipment.

  3. When necessary, define the new shipment's details in the Shipping details pane.
  4. In the right-hand Payment transactions pane, make sure that the customer has made all required payments.

    In the case of some payment services (e.g. Klarna), you must activate payments during order processing so that they can be settled in your online store's bank account.

  5. In the shipment's heading row, click Mark as shipped and send shipping confirmation.
  6. Print the relevant order documents for the shipment.

    You can print the shipment's address label and dispatch note as well as any customs documents in the Shipping details section of the order page.

    The documents for the entire order (the receipt, the return form and the entire order's dispatch note) can be found in the Print order documents menu at the top of the order page.

    If your order uses the MyCashflow Invoice payment service, you can open the PDF invoice for printing in the Payment transactions section on the right-hand side of the order page.

    Read more about order and shipment documents.

You have just delivered the order's first batch. Later you can deliver the rest of the products as a separate shipment or, when necessary, add products to the order and divide the order into multiple shipments. For each shipment, perform the actions described above.

If order archiving is enabled in your online store, archive the order to bookkeeping once you're sure that you will no longer have to edit it.

Missing products and complaints with no exchanges

You can add a new shipment to the order if you need to resend any of the order products without exchanging them.

You can add new shipments to the order only if all shipment orders have been delivered.

To add shipments to an order that is still in process see how to create partial shipments.

Don't create unnecessary shipments for the order

Creating a new shipment is a good idea if:

  • One of the order's shipments has been lost in transport, and you'd like to reship the same products.
  • The customer complained about a product, but the customer doesn't have to send the faulty product back to your online store.

Don't create a new shipment for an order that has already been delivered if the customer would like to add products or make any changes to it. In such a case, create a new order for the customer or process a product return.

To add a new shipment to the order:

  1. On the order page, in the Shipping details pane, click New shipment.
  2. In the Shipping details pane, add shipping settings and other details to the new shipment:
    • Shipping methods
    • Collection point (if applicable)
    • Tracking code (if the shipping service doesn't automatically create one)
    • Package quantity
    • Weight
  3. Save the new shipment's details.
  4. Add the desired products to the shipment.
  5. Now that you've added the desired products, if necessary, create a new payment transaction for the order.
  6. After sending products to the customer, in the new shipment's heading row, click Mark as shipped.
  7. Finalize processing the order.

Processing gift card orders

If the order contains gift card products, the processing of it must take into account certain aspects, which will be discussed below.

If the customer pays the entire order when placing it (e.g., by using an online payment service), the gift card is created automatically, and its code and the link to download the gift card in PDF are added to the order confirmation email. In this way, the customer receives the gift card immediately after purchase without you having to do anything. Also, the gift card product is marked as shipped automatically.

If the customer doesn't pay the entire order when placing it (or the customer pays with Klarna Payments), the gift card will only be created when the shipment containing the gift card product is marked as shipped.

When an order is paid with Klarna, the payment needs to be activated before the gift card can be delivered.

When the shipment containing the gift card product is marked as shipped (either automatically or by the merchant):
  • the customer receives a link to download a PDF gift card
    • in the order confirmation email
    • in the shipping confirmation email.

If an order contains multiple gift card products, each one of them will become a separate gift card.

Like other gift cards, gift card products will appear on the Orders > Gift cards page, where you can, among other things:
  • edit the gift card validity period (1 year by default)
  • edit the gift card balance.

Here you can also print the gift card in PDF yourself and send it to the customer e.g. by post or email.

Order statuses

In MyCashflow, orders can have three different statuses during processing. Order status changes automatically as you perform order processing tasks:
  • In process: the default status of all orders.

    You can restore an order to this status even after the delivery by canceling at least one of its shipments or using the Correct shipment information option in the shipment tool menu.

  • Delivered: all of the order's shipments have been delivered.
  • Cancelled: the order or all of its shipments have been canceled. From here, you can restore the order to the processing stage by using the Return to processing button in the upper right corner of the order page.
  • Returned: if you return all of the order's shipments or use the Return the whole order option, the order will be moved to this stage.

    Learn more about processing returns and exchanges.