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, see Net Terms.
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 as a draft in Shopify POS.
Recall a draft order in POS or view it in Shopify admin.
Edit the draft order later.
Email an invoice from POS now or later.
Collect payment later based on agreed net terms.
Apply B2B Wholesale Hub discounts in these workflows.
Note: B2B Wholesale Hub does not process payments. Shopify handles invoicing and payment collection for POS draft orders. For invoice or payment issues, contact 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 Creating wholesale orders with Shopify POS.
3. Open the cart, then tap the … (More actions) menu. 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. After you save the draft, POS clears the active cart (products, customer, and discounts) and shows Draft order saved.
The order you just saved to draft orders immediately appears under the Shopify admin → Orders → Drafts, 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. On mobile, open the Cart tab first. On tablet, you can start from the main cart screen. 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. Select the draft order you want to load (you will see the customer, products, and draft order number).
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 receives an email with the products and discounts, plus a link to checkout to pay. This email will contain a link to the shop checkout that the customer can use to make a payment.
Shopify controls the invoice email format and POS draft order workflow. For more details, see Shopify’s documentation on POS draft orders. For more technical info about Shopify POS and their draft orders, check out Shopify's documentation.