Shopify’s POS provides businesses with the option to create a draft order for their customers and then invoice and/or collect payment at a later date. B2B Wholesale Hub discounts will also work with draft orders on Shopify POS, allowing you to offer your special pricing rates for orders created in this way.
The steps in this article only apply to Shopify POS. In order to provide customers with a self-serve option to create orders that can be paid for and managed later from your online store, please take a look at our Net Terms feature here.
Highlights of using Shopify draft orders on POS with B2B Wholesale Hub
This functionality would be a good fit if your customers are placing orders in person but you’re invoicing them later in the month. Here are some highlights:
Save an order on Shopify POS as a draft order at any time.
Recall that draft order later on POS for processing, or access it from the shop admin.
Edit this draft order later.
Invoice this draft order to customers from POS immediately, or later after recalling it.
Defer customer payment until later based on agreed net terms.
Have B2B Wholesale Hub discounts apply in all of these scenarios.
B2B Wholesale Hub isn’t involved in payment collection of any order. Draft order invoicing will always be done through Shopify. If you’re experiencing issues with an invoice, payment collection, or have specific questions about how to manage these it is best to reach out to Shopify Support.
Creating a draft order on Shopify POS
Use these steps to turn the order you are building on POS into a draft order. This will show up in your admin Orders > Drafts.
1. Start by creating a new order on POS similarly to how you usually would. Add a tagged customer to the order, then add products to the cart.
2. If you need to apply discounts from B2B Wholesale Hub to this order for that tagged customer, follow our guide covering those steps here.
3. Go to cart, and then select the “…” more actions menu button on the top right to pull up a list of additional options for this order.
4. Scroll down to the Order Management section in this menu, and select Save as draft.
5. You will be sent back to the main POS page and shown a notification saying: Draft order saved. Because this completes the order, the customer, discount and products are all removed.
The order you just saved to draft orders immediately appears under the Orders > Drafts section in your shop admin, and can be easily recalled on the POS.
You can process the draft order on POS now by pulling it back up immediately, or you can perform some other options with it later from within your Shopify admin.
Accessing and editing a draft order on POS
Now that a draft order is made you can recall it on POS in order to edit it further, email the invoice to your customer, or accept payment. This also unlocks useful options for you to work with these orders later.
1. If you are using Shopify POS on a mobile device, go to the cart tab. If you are using Shopify POS on a tablet, skip to the next step.
There is no need to add any products or select a customer at this step. Just go to the empty cart page if you’re using a mobile device.
2. Select the “…” more actions button on the top right.
3. Scroll down to the Order Management section and select the option: Load draft.
4. A list of draft orders you’ve previously made on POS will appear. These will list the products in each draft order, the customer’s name, and the draft order number for reference. Tap on the order you wish to load.
5. Selecting the order will bring it back as an active cart. All the products will repopulate, as will the assigned customer and associated discount. Now you can edit this order, collect payment, or invoice the associated customer.
Invoicing a customer from a saved draft order
You can send customers an email containing the contents of a draft order from your POS without having to further process it. This will show the products and discounts, so works well as a general invoice, as a net terms invoice, or even as a quote.
1. After accessing a saved draft order, pull up the cart page and select the “…” more actions button on the top right.
2. Scroll down to the Order Management section and select the option: Email to customer.
3. Enter the email address this draft order will be sent to, and add a custom message if desired. Select Send to send the invoice.
4. The draft is saved again so you can move on to your next order. You’ll also see a notification saying “Cart sent”. You can always recall this draft again to edit it further and resend a new invoice.
5. The customer will receive an email including the products, discounts, and other info about this order. This email will contain a link to the shop checkout that the customer can use to make a payment.
We have no control over the formatting of this email, the invoice sent to customers, and cannot customize the order any of the steps on POS listed above. For more technical info about Shopify POS and their draft orders, please take a look at Shopify’s documentation on this topic here.