To convert a Shopify draft order to an order, open the draft in admin and use Shopify’s complete, payment, or invoice action. If the draft came from a customer purchase order, confirm the matched lines, the catalog prices, the PO number, and the B2B company and location first. Then convert, so fulfilment and accounting start from an order you have already checked.
Draft vs order
A draft is editable preparation. An order is what your team fulfils and what the buyer is billed for. Converting can reserve inventory and start payment, depending on how you complete it: mark as paid, send an invoice, or share a checkout link. Shopify’s exact labels and inventory timing change. Check Help for the current behavior in your plan before you train staff on one button name. The idea does not change: do not convert a draft you have not reviewed.
Pre-convert checklist for PO-sourced drafts
- Uncertain SKUs are resolved. Match SKUs.
- Price flags are decided. Catalog stays unless you accepted an exception. PO vs catalog price.
- The buyer’s PO number is on the draft. PO number.
- Company and location are the ship-to you intend. Companies and locations.
If any flag is still open, the draft is not ready. Converting “to get it out of the queue” is how the wrong variant becomes a pick ticket.
Complete it in Shopify admin
Open the draft. Use the payment or completion actions Shopify shows: collect payment, send invoice, or mark the order as paid if you already took payment outside checkout. Those are Shopify features. POinbox is not the converter.
How the draft was created in the first place: create a draft order and B2B drafts from purchase orders.
Where POinbox fits
Upstream. The file becomes a reviewed draft. Downstream stays native: you convert in Shopify. POinbox does not convert unpaid drafts into orders by itself. If you want cleaner drafts to begin with, that is the install. POinbox starts free (5 successful drafts). Paid plans from $29/mo.
Mistakes that survive the convert button
- Converting with an unresolved SKU flag because the rest of the PO looked fine.
- Locking the wrong company location. After convert, edits follow Shopify’s order-edit limits. Fix the location on the draft.
- Assuming you can freely rewrite the order later. You often can edit, and you often cannot undo fulfilment. Verify the current limits in Shopify Help for your store.
Who is allowed to press complete
Separate the person who clears flags from the person who converts, if you can. The first one knows the PDF. The second one knows whether the account is on credit hold. Combining them is fine in a small team. Pretending the app did both is not. POinbox stops at a reviewed draft. Shopify’s complete, invoice, or mark-as-paid actions are the convert. If a button name in your admin differs from this page, follow the draft you have open, not an old screenshot.
Before that click, the checklist is short because skipping any line is expensive. SKU flags closed. Price flags decided, catalog kept unless someone approved the exception. PO number present. Company and location equal to the dock on the PDF. If one flag is still open, the draft goes back. “We’ll fix it on the order” runs into Shopify’s edit limits once payment or fulfilment has started. Verify the current limits in Help. Do not train people that convert is reversible.
Tell the warehouse the order exists when it is an order. A draft in review is not a pick. That single sentence prevents more mis-ships than another app setting.
Invoice, payment link, or mark as paid
After the checklist, Shopify gives you more than one way to finish. Send an invoice when the buyer pays on terms. Share a checkout link when they will pay by card. Mark as paid when the money already arrived outside Shopify and finance has the record. Those are different buttons because they are different cash events. Pick the one your terms already use. Do not convert “to get it out of drafts” and decide payment later if later means the warehouse ships an unpaid order you did not mean to release.
POinbox is upstream of all three. If the draft was wrong, fix it before any of those buttons. The upstream file path is PDF to draft and the product page.