ChannelEngine: orders

About this article

This article describes the processing of orders on ChannelEngine.

Table of contents

Introduction

Overview

Order actions

Order details

Order statuses

Order handling

Orders and stock

Order support level

Advanced order settings

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Introduction

Automatically manage orders from your connected channels. The manner in which orders are handled depends on your order management system and your connected channels. 

If your order management system supports automated workflows, ChannelEngine automates all order handling between your system and your connected channels. It is also possible to manually process orders via the web interface.

Overview

At Orders, Orders, for all orders from all of your connected channels, you see an overview of each order's: 

• Order ID
• Channel
• Order number
• Order date
• Late unshipped date
• Total order amount
• Order status

Order actions

On each order

You can manually process each order via the action buttons at the end of each line item or within the Order details page: 

• View - view the order's details. Acknowledge New orders in the Order details page.
• Create shipment - if an order is still marked as New or In progress, create a shipment for it.
• Create cancelation - if an order is still marked as New or In progress, create a cancelation for it.
• Create return - after shipping, create a merchant return.  
• Add refund - indicate for which items you issue the buyer a refund.
• Add comment - log a running history of comments on the given order

On a selection of orders

Select one or more orders by checking the box next to each order. Then choose an action for the selected orders:

• Export orders - send an order report in CSV format to your login email address. Use the date range filter to generate annual or monthly invoice reports. To send reports automatically to another location (e.g.: Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, or SFTP server), use the Scheduled order report.
• Set orders to new/closed - manually override the current status of the selected orders to New or Closed.

Filters and search

At the top of the order overview, you can search orders via free text based on order ID, order or product number, or specific customer data. 

• Search via customer data - this filter is only available if you have permission to access customer data; finds orders based on customer data, such as first name, last name, company name, street name, or email address. 
• Search for multiple IDs or order numbers at once, e.g.: select Order ID/no. (equals) and enter 1 2 3 to search for orders with these exact IDs. To search for an order number that includes a space, enclose the value in double quotation marks, e.g.: "ABC 123".
• Filter on: channel, order status, fulfillment mode, date range, acknowledgement status, and late unshipped orders. Combine filters for a specific order overview, e.g.: all shipped FBA orders from all five Amazon EU channels in March 2026.

Order details

When you open an order, by either clicking the 'eye' icon or the order number, you see the order's relevant information, organized into distinct sections.

General details

This section shows the overall details of each order, including the related identifiers, dates, status, and payment method.

Note that different marketplaces, and even different orders from the same marketplace, may include different information. Additionally, some marketplaces export additional data, including the VAT/sales tax calculation method, which is shown in the Extra information section.

Personal details

This section shows the buyer's personal details, including their contact information and invoice address. 

Shipping details

This section shows the shipping details, including information on where and how an order is delivered. 

Apart from the standard fields, such as Shipment address and Address type (Home, Pickup point), these may include:

• Shipment method - the carrier responsible for delivering the order.
• Shipment address note - additional address details provided by the buyer, if any. E.g.: ground floor apartment.
• Shipment service level - the delivery speed and service type. E.g.: standard, expedited, express.
• Pickup point ID - the unique identifier of the pickup location, if any.
• Pickup point name - the name of the pickup location, if any.

It is possible to add a comment on the overall order in the Comment section. 

Products

This section shows the actual products ordered, including their GTIN, the quantity ordered, and the total price.

By default, VAT/sales tax is not shown unless you enable the Show VAT and commission option. Note that most marketplaces do not include VAT/sales tax in their order, and the calculation is done by using either your default VAT/sales tax percentage or country-specific percentages based on your configured VAT/sales tax settings.

The same goes for the commission charged by the marketplace, if available. ChannelEngine makes the subtotal, order, and total order commission fees available to you.

If you make use of stock locations, enable the Show stock locations option to reveal the warehouse associated with a specific order.

Currencies used on orders

If you see order totals in two currencies, the currency that was used by the marketplace was different from the default currency that was set up on your ChannelEngine account. ChannelEngine automatically converts the currency totals to your account's default currency.

The converted amount in your default currency appears in a larger font. The original marketplace price and currency appear below it in a smaller font. To learn more about what currencies are used in orders, check out ChannelEngine: what currency is used on orders?.

Documents

For channels that allow document uploads, upload your order documents in the Documents section. 

Shipments

If the order has already been shipped, this section is populated accordingly. You can then switch between a view that organizes the shipping information along a timeline or across tabs.

Actions

Manage your order from the top bar menu of its Order details page.

• Download an invoice or a packing slip - for the given order, download the ChannelEngine-generated invoice and/or packing slip in the buyer's language (if available) or your account's preferred language. For details on order invoices and related documents, check out ChannelEngine: order invoices and ChannelEngine: order documents.
• Change the order's status - open the three-dot (⋮) menu to perform general status changes. Note that manual status changes are not recommended and should only be used if you do not have a connected order management system. 
  • Change the order status to New  
  • Acknowledge New orders
  • Reset In progress orders to New
  • Set orders to Closed.

Order statuses

The status of an order corresponds to how far it currently is in the fulfillment process. Most orders have an In progress or Shipped status; the other statuses are less common and depend on which order handling methods are supported by the channel.

Once a shipment is added to an order, the status of the order is Shipped. However, this does not guarantee that the shipment details have already been exported to the channel; the channel status of the shipment itself may be In progress/Not exported yet.

The same logic applies to cancelations. The order status might change to Canceled or Closed, but the channel status of the cancelation might still be In progress/Not exported yet.

Order statuses

Requires correction status

If an order has the status Requires correction, you can update it to New in two ways. You can either open the address information by clicking the pencil icon and save it without changing it, or you can open the address information and update it accordingly. In both scenarios, ChannelEngine changes the status to New so that you can continue processing the order.

For more information about our address parser, see the article ChannelEngine: address parsing.

In backorder status

On request, ChannelEngine can enable backorder processing on your tenant – across all channels or for a specific channel. When enabled, ChannelEngine automatically recalculates an order line to In backorder if the ordered quantity becomes higher than the available stock after a stock update. E.g.: order created when stock was 2, later stock updated to 1. The order status is recalculated to In backorder.

The In backorder status is not communicated to the marketplace where the order was placed. If you receive an order with status In backorder, then you are responsible for communicating shipping times within the channel’s expected timeframe. Once the stock becomes available again for the item that is on backorder, ChannelEngine updates the status of the order to New. You can proceed to fulfill the order from here.

Marketplaces sending the In backorder status

Alternatively, a marketplace can communicate the In backorder status to ChannelEngine. In that case, if backorder processing is enabled on the marketplace and on your tenant on ChannelEngine, ChannelEngine imports orders with the status In backorder from the marketplace. 

Once the stock becomes available again for the item that is on backorder, ChannelEngine updates the status of the order to New. You can proceed to fulfill the order from here.

Order handling 

If your order management system is fully integrated with Channel Engine via API or a merchant plugin, order handling is fully automated.

When an order is placed on a marketplace: 

1. ChannelEngine imports the order with order status New. Some marketplaces make orders with status Awaiting payment available. 
2. After the order is imported to your order management system, and you send an order acknowledgement via ChannelEngine to the marketplace, the order status changes to In progress. 
3. When you create a shipment in your system, ChannelEngine is notified of the carrier and track-and-trace information. This changes the order status to Shipped, and ChannelEngine exports this shipment information to the marketplace. 
4. At this point, the buyer is usually notified that the order is on its way.

To better understand the automated order workflow, check out the Merchant API: order status changes (flowchart). 

Orders and stock

Once ChannelEngine receives an order for a specific product, the stock for that product is reserved. E.g.: if you have a stock of 17 vases and two of these are sold, ChannelEngine exports a stock of 15 to all connected marketplaces. As long as the status is New or In progress, this reservation remains – until the status changes to Shipped or Canceled. At that point, the stock from your product feed or other stock connection becomes leading again.

Order support level

On ChannelEngine, order support determines the degree to which orders can be split up for shipments, returns, and cancelations. The degree of order support varies across different marketplaces, categorized as follows:

• 0 (none) - the marketplace does not support any orders or order follow-up actions. E.g.: Beslist does not support automated shipments or returns; therefore, it is not possible to perform any partial order actions.
• 1 (no split/orders) - the marketplace supports orders and follow-up actions, but these cannot be split up. All order lines within a single order must be included in one shipment.
• 2 (split orders) - the marketplace supports orders and follow-up actions, and they can be split into individual order lines. However, each order line itself cannot be split further. E.g.: an order with two separate products can be shipped in two separate shipments. But if a quantity of three of the same product is ordered, only a total of three can be shipped, canceled, or returned.
• 3 (split order lines) - the marketplace supports orders and follow-up actions, and each order line within an order can be split. E.g.: if a quantity of three of the same product is ordered, you can ship two and cancel one.

Advanced order settings

To manage advanced order settings, go to Setting, Settings, Advanced, Orders. Manage the following order settings on your entire tenant:

• Set orders to closed after import - closes all orders imported by ChannelEngine, with no stock reservation applied. For more details on using this setting, check out ChannelEngine: stock reservation.
• Disable auto order cancelation for new orders - when enabled, ChannelEngine does not update the status of the order to Canceled when a cancelation request comes in from the marketplace. 
• Enable order bundle line invoices - when enabled, the product bundle appears as the order line item, instead of the parts of the bundle. 
• Randomize anonymous email value - if enabled, ChannelEngine randomly generates an email address for an order that does not include one. The generated email follows this structure: 'no-email[random GUID]@channelengine.com', where random GUID is a unique identifier. If the setting is disabled, ChannelEngine uses 'no-email@channelengine.com' for every order with no email.
• Overwrite line extra data with bundle extra data - enable this setting to let bundle-level extra data overwrite line-level extra data. Disable if you want product-specific order line extra data to appear with the order line. 
• Default VAT rate - the default VAT rate on orders when no other VAT rate is available. For more details on VAT settings, check out ChannelEngine: VAT settings.
• Late unshipped days - the number of days after which the order is considered as late unshipped. ChannelEngine adds the specified number of days to the order date to calculate the late unshipped date. You can override this value by using the Late unshipped days setting for a specific channel, on its Setup page. To learn more about the late unshipped feature, check out the ChannelEngine: late unshipped orders article.
• Order too long on new hours offset - indicate the number of hours after which you want to receive a digital notification that an order stays in status New. For more details on notifications, check out ChannelEngine: how to configure notifications.

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