Fulfillment

Fulfillment tracks the exact item quantities prepared and physically handed off, separately from an order's status. The fulfillment status shown in Sales is a summary of those line-level records; it is not a dropdown you set independently.

What the summary means

Order status such as Processing does not mean a package was prepared or shipped. Use the guided Fulfillment workflow in Sales for physical progress.

Prepare a shipment and label

Select the exact quantities going into one loaded package, enter its weight and dimensions, review the carrier service and charge, then buy the label. A successful purchase makes the package Ready to ship. You can print or reprint the label, but the items are still with you: buying or printing a label does not mark the order shipped and does not email the customer.

If a provider result is uncertain, stop and use the reconciliation guidance on the package. Do not start a second label purchase merely because the first response was lost.

Recover an uncertain prepared-shipment cancellation

Cancelling a Ready to ship package with paid postage first asks the carrier to void that exact label. The package stays Ready and carrier handoff stays blocked until litecommerce can prove whether the void happened. Cancelling the package does not cancel the order, refund the customer, send an email, or promise carrier-account credit.

litecommerce retries uncertain carrier results automatically within a fixed safety budget. If the package says automatic checks are paused, an Owner or Admin can select Retry exact carrier check, enter a reason, and confirm one read-only lookup. This action:

• uses the exact stored label; you cannot choose or replace its provider id;
• requires the currently connected provider account and credential generation to match the one that bought the label;
• sends no new void request and buys no postage; and
• stores the requesting staff member, reason, time, and provider-check history.

The result determines the next safe state:

For a support handoff, record the order and package, the visible carrier-check message, and the provider support case if one exists. Do not edit database rows, clear the cancellation history, mark a label voided from an operator note, buy replacement postage, or hand off the package while the warning remains. A manual note is not carrier proof; resolution must come from the exact lookup or a later product-supported evidence path.

Cancel a package with an externally managed label

Some imported or manually managed packages retain tracking, a label PDF, or already-retired postage that litecommerce cannot verify or void through its connected carrier account. This evidence is not label-free and ordinary cancellation stays blocked.

After your team has handled any required void directly with the external carrier, an Owner or Admin can select Acknowledge external label & cancel. They must enter a reason and explicitly confirm responsibility for the external carrier void and any carrier-account refund. litecommerce then stores the staff member, time, exact package, reason, and an immutable snapshot of the retained tracking/label/PDF/cost evidence before cancelling that package allocation.

The acknowledgement is merchant testimony, not provider confirmation. It does not rewrite a label as carrier-voided, promise carrier credit, refund the customer, consume inventory, or send a customer email. Current or uncertain native postage still uses the carrier reconciliation and exact-label recovery workflow above; it cannot use this acknowledgement path.

Record carrier handoff

When the carrier physically takes the package, choose whether to send or suppress the shipped email and confirm handoff on that exact package. Handoff moves Ready to ship → Shipped, consumes only that package's selected stock, and recalculates the order's fulfillment summary from handed-off line quantities. This is when a multi-package order may become Partially fulfilled.

The available count was already reduced when checkout reserved stock. At handoff, the selected units leave on-hand and reserved inventory together. See Stock levels & adjustments for the complete stock model.

Record delivery

Once a package has been handed to the carrier, Mark delivered on that exact package records your own confirmation that the recipient received it. Choose the delivery date and time and give a short reason, and the confirmation is stored with your name against that package.

This is your team's confirmation, not the carrier's. litecommerce shows it that way everywhere it appears, to you and to the customer, because a merchant saying a parcel arrived and a carrier scanning it are different facts. A carrier pickup scan is not required — a recorded handoff is.

Recording delivery is deliberately quiet. It moves no stock, sends no email, creates no return or refund, and does not change the label. It records what happened and nothing else.

A few rules worth knowing:

• The delivery time cannot be earlier than the recorded handoff, and cannot be in the future.
• Each package is confirmed on its own. On a multi-package order, confirming one parcel says nothing about the others.
• Once recorded, the delivery time is locked. The compatibility tracking editor will show it as read-only rather than let you change it there.
• Repeating the same confirmation is safe. A duplicate click, or a retry after a connection problem, records one delivery.

Moving the order forward

Handoff and delivery describe the package. Processing and Completed describe the order. They are separate on purpose, so litecommerce offers the next step rather than taking it for you.

After you record a handoff, if the order is still Confirmed, you are asked whether to move it to Processing. After you record a delivery, you are asked whether to move it to Completed — but only when every ordered quantity is fulfilled and every package on the order has been delivered. A split order will not offer completion on its first delivered parcel.

Declining either question changes nothing. The handoff or delivery you just recorded stands either way.

If the order is still Confirmed when everything arrives, completing it moves it through Processing first, because that is the only legal path. Completing an order does not affect a customer's ability to start a return.

Tracking and historical orders

Carrier, service, tracking number, and tracking link remain visible with the package. If a carrier label omits tracking, add truthful tracking through the guided handoff flow when available.

Older orders may show Historical compatibility shipment or Fulfillment needs reconciliation. Compatibility tracking is edit-only: it cannot invent item quantities, create a shipment, change fulfillment status, move inventory, or send another shipment email. It also cannot change a delivery time that Mark delivered recorded — that field is shown locked, with the reason. Follow the reconciliation message instead of trying to recreate the old order-wide fulfillment action.

Who can do this

Any team member can view orders. Owners and Admins can operate fulfillment, and so can Staff granted the Orders and fulfillment permission group. Only Owners and Admins can buy or reconcile a carrier label; Staff without the group see fulfillment read-only. See Team & permissions.

Related

• Managing orders — the order status lifecycle
• Stock levels & adjustments — how fulfillment draws down stock