Order Statuses and Lifecycle
An order moves through a few clear stages from the moment it's created to the moment it ships. Knowing what each stage means tells you what you can do next — and what Iraca does automatically along the way.
The stages
- Draft — a work in progress. You can change the customer, items, and quantities. Nothing has been committed and no email has gone out.
- Pending approval — only if you've set an approval threshold: the order is over it and waits for a second owner to approve it. Nothing ships and nothing is sent to the customer. See Order Approval.
- Awaiting payment — a marketplace order the marketplace hasn't released yet: Amazon shows it as Pending while it verifies payment, WooCommerce as Pending payment or On hold. Its stock is held so you can't sell those units twice, but it isn't counted as a sale, doesn't go on pick lists and can't be shipped. When the marketplace releases it, it becomes Confirmed on its own; if the marketplace cancels it or the payment fails, it becomes Cancelled and the stock is released.
- Confirmed — the order is locked in and stock is committed against it. This is the point where Iraca can email the customer a confirmation (see below).
- Labels purchased — a shipping label has been bought for the order. You can print the label and packing slip together.
- Ready to pack — when fulfillment mode is on, a labeled order waits here for your team to pick and pack it.
- Partly shipped — some of the order has gone out and the rest is still outstanding. See Shipping Part of an Order.
- Fulfilled — the order is done: picked, packed, and on its way.
The exact step after a label is bought depends on whether fulfillment mode is on — it goes to Ready to Pack if so, or straight to Fulfilled if not.
Confirming an order
Confirming is the meaningful transition. When you confirm a sales order:
- Stock is committed for the line items.
- For an order you created by hand, you're asked how it should be taxed, and the rate is fixed onto the order from that moment. See Sales Tax on Orders.
- If it's an order you created by hand and the customer has an email on file, Iraca automatically emails them a confirmation with the order attached as a PDF.
- If the customer has a credit limit and this order would take them past it, the confirm is refused and the order stays a draft. See Credit limits.
- If you've set an approval threshold and this order is at or above it, the order is held at Pending approval instead of confirming — nothing ships and the customer is not emailed until another owner approves it. See Order Approval.
Because of that auto-email, drafts are worth reviewing before you confirm — you get a chance to fix items or the address first.
Orders from a channel arrive already confirmed, so they don't pass through this step and are not auto-emailed. You can still email those customers by hand at any time.
See Order Emails and Documents for the full picture on what's sent and when.
Cancelling an order
A Draft is simply deleted. Once an order is confirmed, use Cancel order on the order page instead (owners and admins). You can add a reason, and it's kept in the order's activity.
Cancelling a confirmed sales order releases everything it was holding: its units stop being committed, it leaves pick lists and its delivery window, and it no longer counts against the customer's credit. A cancelled purchase order stops counting as stock on order. Nothing is posted to your books, because nothing has shipped or been received yet.
Iraca won't cancel an order that already has money or goods behind it, and tells you what to do instead:
| If the order… | Do this instead |
|---|---|
| Has shipped, even partly | Take the goods back as a return |
| Was paid online by the customer | Use Cancel and refund, so the card is refunded too |
| Has a deposit invoice | Void the deposit invoice (or credit it if it was paid), then cancel |
| Is on a delivery route | Take it off the route first |
| Came from a marketplace or store | Cancel it there; Iraca follows |
| Is a purchase order with anything received | It can't be cancelled; anything not delivered can be left unreceived |
| Is a purchase order with a supplier bill | Void the bill first |
Moving a purchase order back to draft
Confirmed a purchase order with the wrong quantities or prices? Use Back to draft on the purchase order's page (owners and admins). It goes back to Draft, so you can edit it and confirm it again. The change is kept in the order's activity.
You can do this as long as nothing has been received against the order and it has no supplier bill (void the bill first). Nothing is posted to your books and no stock moves, because confirming a purchase order doesn't post anything either.
If you already emailed the order to your supplier, they still have the old version. Let them know it's changing, and send the corrected one once you confirm it again.
Sales orders can't go back to draft. Cancel one instead and create a new order.
What you can do at each stage
| Stage | You can… |
|---|---|
| Draft | Edit items, customer, quantities; confirm |
| Pending approval | Wait for another owner to approve or reject; cancel |
| Awaiting payment | Nothing: Iraca confirms or cancels it when the marketplace does |
| Confirmed | Edit ship-to; email the customer; buy labels; cancel |
| Labels purchased | Print label + packing slip; pack |
| Ready to pack | Pick and pack in fulfillment mode |
| Partly shipped | Fulfill the remaining units; take payment on what shipped |
| Fulfilled | Print documents; review history |
Recording customer payments
This applies to manual sales orders — ones you create in Iraca and invoice a customer for directly. Once you fulfill a manual sales order, a Customer payments panel appears on the order detail page showing the order total, how much has been paid, and the amount still due. Click Record payment to log a payment (amount, date, method, and an optional reference); partial payments are supported and the status moves from Unpaid → Partially paid → Paid as they add up.
Recording a payment relieves the receivable in your books (it posts Debit Cash / Credit Accounts Receivable), so your Accounts Receivable balance reflects what customers still owe — not everything they've ever been invoiced.
Which orders show this panel? Only manual sales orders that have booked a receivable (via the Fulfill action). It is intentionally not shown for:
- Marketplace and WooCommerce orders — the customer already paid at checkout on Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, WooCommerce, etc. That money reaches you later as a marketplace payout/settlement, not as a payment you record per order.
- POS sales — paid at the point of sale, so cash is recorded immediately (no receivable).
Order timestamps
Every order shows its date and time in the order list and on the order detail page — for example, "Jun 21, 2026, 3:45 PM". The time is displayed in your local time zone.
- Manual orders — shows the time the order was created in Iraca.
- Channel-imported orders (Amazon, Walmart, WooCommerce, etc.) — shows the time the order was originally placed on the marketplace, not the time it was imported.
Filtering the order list by "Today" and "Yesterday"
The date filter on the Orders page counts days the way the order was placed, with one catch: what "a day" means depends on whether you've narrowed the list to one store.
- One store chosen, and its marketplace has a cutoff time set (Settings, marketplace cutoffs): a day runs from one cutoff to the next. Today means "since the most recent cutoff", and Yesterday is the cutoff-to-cutoff window before it. This is the same window a pick list uses, so the two always agree.
- All stores, manual orders, or a marketplace with no cutoff: a day is the calendar day in your business's time zone.
The exact window is printed under the filter (for example, "Oct 19, 3:00 PM to Oct 20, 3:00 PM · Amazon cutoff"), so you can always see what you are looking at. The other ranges (This week, This month, Last 30 days, Custom) are calendar days.