Effective order management is essential for ecommerce to ensure timely processing, accurate fulfillment, and a seamless customer experience.

Order States help you track and manage each stage of the order process, making it easier to stay organized and address any issues promptly.

To review Order States, navigate to the Orders tab of the admin dashboard.

Here, you’re presented with a list of every order that has been placed on your store, with two columns indicating the ‘Payment State’ and the ‘Shipment State’ of each order.

The Order State is determined by the combination of the Payment State and the Shipment State.

Payment State

As the name suggests, the payment state indicates the status of the payment(s) associated with the order. Payment states are as follows:

Payment StateDescription
PaidPayment for the order has been captured
Balance DuePayment for the order has not been captured
Credit OwedThe customer is owed credit for the order (e.g., an item was out of stock)
RefundedPayment for the order has been fully refunded
Partially RefundedPayment for the order has been partially refunded
FailedPayment could not be processed

Note: You cannot directly update the Payment Status. The Payment Status will be updated automatically when taking certain actions. For example, if you add a line item to an order, the status will update to Balance Due, or if you remove a line item, the status will update to Credit Owe.

Shipment State

Similar to the above, the Shipment State indicates the status of shipment(s) associated with the order. Shipment states are as follows:

Shipment StateDescription
FulfilledOrder has been shipped
PartialAt least one suborder has been shipped
Unfulfilled (Yellow)Order needs to be shipped
Unfulfilled (Grey)Order needs to be shipped, but payment not yet captured
CancelledOrder has been cancelled

Note: You cannot directly update the Shipment Status. The Shipment Status will be updated automatically when taking certain actions. For example, if you ship an order, the status will be updated to Fulfilled, or if you cancel an order, then the status will be updated to Cancelled.

Using Order States

Understanding the meaning of each Payment State and Shipment State helps you identify the next steps for any given order, for example:

Payment StateShipment StateAction
PaidFulfilledNone - the order is complete
PaidUnfulfilledShip the order
Balance DueUnfulfilledRequest payment from the customer
Credit OwedPartialRefund the amount owed

Now that you understand Order States, check out this support article to learn more about processing orders.