Order management for an online store: statuses, edits and refunds

In short: order management is everything that happens to an order after checkout: payment, status, shipping label, changes, customer emails, refunds and archive. In CloudCart you change an order's status from the coloured status field at the top of the order (Orders → the order). There are 6 main statuses to pick, 2 fulfillment statuses and any you create. An order becomes Completed only once it is paid or fulfilled, and a paid order cannot be cancelled.

Order management is the work a seller does every day: check new orders, confirm payment, create the shipping label, handle a change the customer asks for, keep the customer informed and archive what is done. In an online store selling across Europe it also has a legal side, because EU consumer law sets a delivery deadline, a refund deadline and a confirmation the customer must receive. CloudCart is an ecommerce platform for stores selling across Europe, and it keeps this work in the Orders menu of the admin: one list for all orders and a page for each order. This guide goes through every step with the button names exactly as they appear in the admin. For the features without the steps, see the page on orders and returns.

Where are the orders and how do I find one?

All orders are in Orders in the left menu, and you open an order by clicking its row. The list shows number, date, address, status, fulfillment, delivery and amount, and the search field above the filters finds an order by almost anything the customer tells you on the phone or in an email.

What you type in search	What it finds
A number	Order, invoice or receipt number, SKU, barcode, phone number (matched from the end, so it works without the leading 0 or the country code)
Text	Email, the customer's first and last name, their note on the order, a product, category or brand name
Anything with @	The customer's email
Other	Tracking number, the payment reference at the payment provider

There are more than 22 filter types and they combine. "Status: Paid" + "Fulfillment: Unfulfilled" + "Date: today" gives you the orders to pack. From the Saved filters menu, Save filter stores the combination under a name of up to 30 characters and pins it as a tab above the list. Each team member has their own saved filters.

Important: with no filter at all, the list hides cancelled, voided and archived orders. As soon as you apply any filter or type in search, they appear. That is why the order count differs with and without a filter.

What order statuses are there in CloudCart?

CloudCart has 11 main order statuses: 4 for the normal path and 7 for cancellation, refund or a payment problem. In the status picker you see 6 of them, the two fulfillment statuses and the statuses you created. The other 5 are set by the payment provider.

Status	What it means	Can you set it by hand?
Pending	The order is placed but not paid yet: cash on delivery, bank transfer	Yes
Authorized	The amount is held on the card but not captured yet	Yes
Paid	The money has arrived	Yes
Completed	The order is finished	Yes, if it is paid or fulfilled
Cancelled	The order is stopped and the stock goes back to inventory	Yes, if it is not paid or completed
Refunded	The money has been returned to the customer	Yes
Chargebacked, Disputed, Voided, Failed, Timeouted	Disputed, voided or failed payment	No: Chargebacked and Voided come from the payment provider, and Failed and Timeouted remain only on old orders

Separately from the status, every order has a fulfillment status: Fulfilled or Not fulfilled. Fulfilled means the goods have left, for example with a shipping label. A cash on delivery order is usually Pending and Fulfilled until the courier reports the money.

Custom statuses

You add your own status, for example "Waiting for supplier" or "Ready to pack", in Settings → Statuses, in the Orders section. You can also rename the built-in statuses there. A custom status sits under one of the main ones, so the "Paid" filter also shows orders in "Paid: ready to pack". A custom status can be deleted only when no order is in it.

How do I change an order status?

You change the status of one order from the coloured status field at the top of the order page: click it, pick the new status, and the change applies at once. The colour shows the state: green for paid and completed, red for cancelled, orange for pending and unfulfilled.

1. Open the order. Orders → click the order's row.
2. Decide about the email. In the customer card on the right, check the Notify customer switch. If the customer should not get an email for this change, turn it off now, before you change the status.
3. Change the status. Click the status field at the top and choose the new one from the list.
4. Use the quick actions. The three-dot menu at the top right has Mark as completed and Cancel order. They follow the same rules.
5. Check the history. The change is saved in the order history with the date, time and who made it.

The platform enforces a few rules and refuses the change with a message when one is broken:

• Completed is possible only for an order that is paid or fulfilled. One of the two is enough.
• Cancelled is not possible for an order that is already paid or completed. Such an order is refunded instead: with the refund button or with a return.
• An archived order does not change status until you take it out of the archive.
• A cancelled or refunded order that has a return or a credit note stays locked.
• If the amount held on the card is lower than the new order total, no status change goes through until you bring the order back to the held amount.

A paid and fulfilled order becomes Completed on its own. That is the Auto-complete orders when paid & fulfilled setting in Settings → Cart and checkout, which is on by default.

Changing the status of many orders at once

In the order list, tick the rows and choose a bulk action. There are three bulk actions: Archive, Unarchive and Mark as completed. Bulk cancellation, payment or refund do not exist; those go order by order.

Important: a bulk action in the admin either applies to all selected orders or to none. If one of 50 selected orders breaks a rule, none of them change. Filter first (for example only paid orders), then select. And look after your customers: 100 orders completed at once means 100 emails if notifications are on.

How do I notify the customer about the order status?

The customer gets an email when the status changes if three switches allow it: Notify customer on the order, the active status change template and the general setting for customer emails. The template is one for all statuses, so you cannot send an email for Completed and skip Paid.

Switch	Where it is	If it is off
Notify customer	On the order, in the customer card on the right	This order sends no status emails (neither to the customer nor to you)
Status change template	Marketing → Channels → Email notifications	No status emails in the whole store; the order confirmation stays
General setting for customer emails	The same screen	All customer emails stop: confirmations, statuses, abandoned carts

The order confirmation matters for more than service. Under Article 8(7) of the EU Consumer Rights Directive, which applies to contracts concluded after 13 June 2014, the seller must give the customer a confirmation of the contract on a durable medium, and an email counts. So leave the confirmation email on, even if you switch off status emails.

Three things to know about status emails:

• The email leaves after about 10 seconds and shows the status the order has at that moment. Two quick changes (Paid, then Cancelled) produce two emails, both saying "Cancelled".
• An order paid online sends no "Paid" email. When the payment provider moves the status from Pending to Paid, there is no status email, because the customer already received the order confirmation.
• The notification button sends nothing. It only turns Notify customer on or off for future changes. The email for the current status is not sent again.

A shipped parcel has its own email: when you create the shipping label, the customer learns the parcel is on its way. How to build on these emails with a post-purchase message is covered in email marketing for an online store.

How does the customer check their order status?

The customer sees the status of their order in three ways: in the email at every status change, in the shipping email and in their account in the store, which lists all their orders. A buyer who checked out as a guest has no account, so they rely on the emails.

The tracking number is saved on the order when you create the shipping label, and the customer follows the parcel with it on the courier's website. If the courier is not connected to the store, you mark the order as fulfilled by hand and enter the tracking number and a tracking link yourself. Which couriers connect, including DHL and the Sendcloud and EuShipment shipping services for Europe, is on the shipping page.

When a customer calls because they cannot see their order, open Customers and click the Login to customer account icon next to their name. A new tab shows the store exactly as they see it: orders, addresses and cart. The icon is missing for guests, because they have no account.

How do I mark an order as paid and refund money?

An order paid by cash on delivery or bank transfer is marked as paid with the Mark as paid button in the order's payment row. The button appears only for an offline payment in Pending, because card payments update their status on their own.

1. Open the order and find the payment row below the products.
2. Mark as paid. A window opens with one field for the payment reference (for example the reference on the bank transfer). It is optional, but search will then find the order by that reference too.
3. Save. The payment becomes paid, stock is counted, and with the default settings the order gets an invoice number.

For cash on delivery there is also automatic reconciliation with couriers that report COD payments back to the store, for example Econt and Speedy for orders shipped in Bulgaria: when the courier reports that the customer has paid, the order becomes Completed on its own. You see these events in Orders → COD sync, together with how many you have used this month. Per the pricing page in November 2026, the automatic checks per calendar month are 25, 50, 500 and 1,000 on Baby Pack, Starter Pack, CC Pro and CC Master. A comparison of the two ways to pay is in cash on delivery or card payments.

Money from a card payment goes back with the red Refund payment button in the same row. It refunds the full amount through the provider (CloudCart Pay, Stripe, PayPal and others), the stock is restored and the order becomes Refunded. A partial refund goes through a return: Issue return at the top of the order, tick only the returned lines, and the credit note comes from the same screen. Cash on delivery and bank transfer are not refunded through the button: you transfer the money yourself and issue a credit note. EU law gives you 14 days to refund after a withdrawal, using the same means of payment the customer used (Article 13 of the same directive); the deadlines in detail are in returns and consumer rights for an online store.

How do I edit an order: address, customer, products and discount?

You edit an order from its page, but each part has its own rule for when it can change. The invoice matters most: once the order has an invoice number, its products are locked. Under EU VAT law, a correction is made with a new document: Article 219 of the VAT Directive treats any document that amends and clearly refers to the initial invoice as an invoice, which in practice is the credit note.

What you change	Where	When it is locked
Products, quantities, line price	The product table: + Add product and the gear icon on each line	The order has an invoice number, or it is not Pending, Paid or Authorized, or it is fulfilled
Customer first name, last name, email	Customer card → gear icon → Edit customer info on this order	The status is not Pending, Paid or Disputed, or the order is archived
Shipping address	Customer card → gear icon → Edit shipping address, Change address or Office / Locker	The order is completed or fulfilled. The invoice does not lock it
Billing address	The same menu → Edit billing address	The order has an invoice number, or it is completed, or it is fulfilled
Discount on the whole order	Discount row → Add Discount	The order already has a discount or is archived

Important: with the default settings CloudCart assigns an invoice number on its own as soon as the order is paid, completed or fulfilled. So a paid order in practice already has an invoice, and its products cannot be touched. If the customer wants one more product, create a new order; if they want fewer, issue a return with a credit note.

The address and the courier pickup point

When the customer asks for the parcel to go to a courier office or parcel locker instead of their address, choose Office / Locker and pick the location from the courier's list, where the courier offers this. Every time you save the address, the shipping price and VAT are recalculated. The Update address in profile checkbox is off by default: without it, the new address applies only to this order. If a shipping label already exists, it is not cancelled on its own: remove it with Remove waybill and create a new one.

Products in the order

• + Add product adds a product from the catalog, one at a time.
• The gear icon on a line changes quantity, price and options, or removes the line. The last product cannot be removed.
• A variant cannot be swapped in place: remove the line and add the right variant.
• Discount on one line: Flat (amount) or Percent (the default). The amount must be lower than the line price.
• An added product reduces stock, a removed one returns it.

The discount on the whole order comes either from your discounts (only those that match the customer group and the minimum amount) or is manual: an amount or a percentage for this order only. An order has at most one such discount; to apply another, first remove the old one with Remove Discount.

How do I create an order manually (by phone)?

A manual order is created from Orders → + Add order in two steps: first the customer and delivery, then the products and payment. The customer is required, so if the call is from someone new, create them on the spot with + Add customer.

1. Customer and delivery. In the right panel choose the customer, the delivery method (address, office, locker) and the address. Save creates a draft.
2. Products. In the draft add the products, payment and shipping, and check the total.
3. Offline payment. For cash on delivery or bank transfer, Create order turns the draft into a regular order at once.
4. Card payment. Create order and send to client emails the customer a payment link. The order stays a draft until they pay.

A draft does not reduce stock and sends no emails until it becomes an order. From then on, a manual order goes through the same statuses, notifications and invoices as an order from the website.

Shipping label, history and order locking

The shipping label is created from the order's shipping row with Generate waybill: the courier's form opens with the recipient, weight and cash on delivery amount filled in, you review it and save. The order becomes fulfilled, stock is counted and the customer is notified. EU law expects delivery without undue delay and no later than 30 days after the order unless you agreed another date, and the seller carries the risk of damage until the customer receives the goods, as Your Europe explains.

For many orders at once there is the Bulk print app: install it from Apps → Bulk print, and the order list gets an Enable Bulk print button for labels and packing slips for a group of orders, with each installed courier using its own settings. The first 3 orders a day in bulk printing are included, and for more you choose a daily pack in the app.

The order history is a log of every change: who (a team member, the system or the API), what and when, grouped by day. Entries cannot be edited or deleted, so in a dispute with a customer the history shows exactly when the status or address changed.

If several people work on orders, check Lock orders in Settings → Store settings. It is on by default: an open order is locked for other team members for 7 minutes, so two people do not save over each other. You change the time in the Lock time field, and the store owner is not blocked by the lock.

Archive and export of orders

An order in CloudCart is never deleted, neither from the admin nor through the API. Old orders are archived: they leave the list, but all their data stays and shows with the Archived = Yes filter.

• One order: the three-dot menu → Archive. It appears only for Completed or Cancelled orders.
• Many orders: tick them in the list → Archive. If one of the selected orders is not completed or cancelled, none are archived. Filter by status first.
• Back from the archive: Unarchive, with no status restriction.

Order export is the Export button at the top right of the list. It downloads a CSV file with the orders in the current filter: if you filtered "October, paid", the file holds exactly those. Each product in an order is on its own row, and the columns are fixed (more than 46). With two-factor authentication on, you enter a code first. Up to 50 orders download at once; above 50 the file is prepared in the background and arrives by email. Per the pricing page, order export is included in CC Pro and CC Master.

How do I manage orders from my phone?

You manage CloudCart orders from your phone with the CloudCart Admin mobile app for iPhone and Android. The app costs €0 and sends a push notification for every new order, and you open the order from the notification with one tap.

Task	On the computer	In CloudCart Admin
New order	You see it when you open the admin	A notification on your phone the moment it arrives
Status change	Yes	Yes
Shipping label, courier, delivery type and office	Yes	Yes
Adding a product or variant and a discount	Yes	Yes
Revenue, orders and abandoned carts	The admin dashboard	The dashboard in the app
Phone order with a payment link	+ Add order	Yes

Example: a customer calls to add one more product. You open the order in the app and add it while you talk, as long as the order has no invoice yet. The app is on the App Store (iOS 16.4 or later) and Google Play, and there is more about it on the CloudCart Admin for iPhone and Android page.

Managing orders with an AI assistant

An AI assistant such as Claude Code, ChatGPT Codex, Gemini CLI or Cursor manages orders through the CloudCart Admin GraphQL API with a key you create in Settings → PAT Tokens. Reading needs the orders:read permission, and changing a status needs orders. The assistant follows the same rules as a person in the admin.

Task	In the admin	With an AI assistant
Today's orders to pack	Filter by status, fulfillment and date	"Show today's paid and unfulfilled orders: number, amount, courier."
Cash on delivery orders that are stuck	Filter plus a manual check of the dates	"Which cash on delivery orders have been waiting more than 3 days? Sort them by amount."
Bulk completion	All or nothing	A background job that skips only the orders the rules refuse and lists them
Average order and cancellations	Export and spreadsheet formulas	"What was the average order value in October, and how many orders were cancelled or refunded?"
Monthly report	CSV export and a spreadsheet	"Make a table of October's orders by country and courier, with cancellations and refunds."

The admin gives you a filter and a list, and the conclusion (which orders are stuck, which country or courier has more failed deliveries) is yours to draw. The assistant reads the orders, does the maths and returns a finished answer in English, as a table or as text for the team.

From orders to the next sale

Order data is also the basis of email marketing. In Marketing → Segments you build a segment on conditions such as "placed an order in the last 30 days" or "has not ordered", and send it a campaign in Marketing Suite. Ask the assistant "which products do customers who ordered twice buy most often?" and use the answer for the email content. The campaign reaches only subscribers who gave consent, and unsubscribed customers get nothing. How to build the campaign itself is in an email campaign in CloudCart step by step.

Start with read-only access and add orders once you have seen how the assistant works. Ask it to show first which orders it will change, then confirm. Only the store owner creates keys: the owner can restrict a key to the office IP address, give it an expiry date and revoke it at any time from the PAT Tokens screen. Which order numbers to watch every week is in ecommerce KPIs with an AI agent.

Good practice in order management

1. Save 3 or 4 filters as tabs. "To pack", "Cash on delivery over 3 days", "Cancelled this week". The morning check takes a minute.
2. Decide about the email before the status. Test, internal or old order: turn off Notify customer first, then change the status.
3. Do not change the status twice in a row. Within 10 seconds both emails carry the last status. Choose once.
4. Check the order before payment. After the invoice, products are locked. On a phone order, check quantities and address while it is still a draft.
5. Change the address before the shipping label. Once created, the label does not update itself.
6. Create custom statuses for your own steps. "Waiting for supplier" or "Personalisation" show the team what the order is waiting for, with no notes in a separate file.
7. Watch the 30-day delivery limit. A saved filter "Paid + Not fulfilled", sorted by date, shows the orders closest to the deadline that EU law sets.
8. Archive monthly. Filter by Completed and Cancelled, then bulk Archive. The list keeps only active orders.

Mistakes to avoid

• Cancelling a paid order. The platform does not allow it. Refund the payment (Refund payment) or issue a return. With a full refund the status becomes Refunded, with a partial one it stays the same.
• A bulk action on a mixed selection. One unsuitable order stops the whole group. Filter by status before you tick.
• Expecting to delete an order. There is no deletion. Test orders are cancelled and archived.
• Adding a product to a paid order. The invoice locks it. Create a new order for the extra product.
• Counting orders with no filter. Without a filter, cancelled and archived orders are hidden. For an exact count, filter by date.
• Bulk completion with notifications on. Hundreds of emails to customers about old orders. Turn off the status change template for the duration.
• Refunding cash on delivery without a credit note. The money goes by bank transfer, and the credit note from the order keeps the books matching the refund.

Frequently asked questions