DocsOrders & fulfillment

The Orders page

An exception-first order book that surfaces only the orders that require your attention.

5 min read

Most orders complete without any action from you. They arrive from your store, print in Orange, California, and ship automatically. The Orders page is built around that pattern. Rather than a long list to monitor, it is an exception-first order book: it moves the few orders that need your action to the top and lets everything else route to production on its own.

The facts line and Next action

Open Orders from the sidebar. Under the title, one line of facts answers whether anything needs you: for example “366 orders · 4 need action ($103 on hold) · 24 in production · 1 past ship-by · Updates live.” The count that needs action is amber and the count past ship-by is red.

$ on hold is the money tied up in orders stuck partway through charging, such as a declined card or an order held for your approval. It determines which order is most urgent.

When one or more orders need action, a Next action row sits above the list: the most urgent order — the one with the most money at stake — with its reason, its amount, and the one button that clears it. That button is the page’s only primary button, so you always know where to start.

No Next action row means you're done

If there is no Next action row and the Action required tab is empty, there is nothing to approve, retry, or fix. Most visits to this page end here.

The five tabs

Every order falls into exactly one tab, and each tab carries a live count that reflects the full set of orders, not only the page you are viewing. Orders are sorted as follows:

The Orders page with Action required, In production, Late, Fulfilled, and All tabs above rows flagged Payment declined, Refund requested, and Held for approval, each with its action button. — The exception-first order book: five tabs across the top, with the Action required rows surfacing a declined card, a refund request, and an order held for approval, each paired with the single action that clears it.

Each tab shows a live count; Action required turns hot when it is not empty.

Tab	What it contains	How it is sorted
Action required	Orders with something only you can resolve: a declined card, an unmatched SKU, an order awaiting your approval, or a customer request.	By $ at risk, worst first
In production	Every live order that is moving on its own: queued, printing, printed, packed, or in transit.	By delivery pressure
Late	Open orders past their ship-by promise. This tab appears only when an order is actually late.	Most overdue first
Fulfilled	Shipped, delivered, refunded, or cancelled orders.	Most recent first
All	Every order, in one list.	Most recent first

Action required
What it contains
Orders with something only you can resolve: a declined card, an unmatched SKU, an order awaiting your approval, or a customer request.
How it is sorted
By $ at risk, worst first
In production
What it contains
Every live order that is moving on its own: queued, printing, printed, packed, or in transit.
How it is sortedBy delivery pressure
Late
What it contains
Open orders past their ship-by promise. This tab appears only when an order is actually late.
How it is sortedMost overdue first
Fulfilled
What it contains
Shipped, delivered, refunded, or cancelled orders.
How it is sortedMost recent first
All
What it contains
Every order, in one list.
How it is sortedMost recent first

Action required is the default view whenever it contains an order, and the tab is highlighted so it is easy to find. When it is empty, the page switches to In production. The Late tab appears only when there is a late order to show. It is tied to PrintPort’s internal 72-hour (3-day) ship-by promise, not a carrier date. A late order rarely indicates a mistake on your part; it means PrintPort is behind on its own promise, and those orders are moved to the front. See Tracking & delivery for more.

Reading an order row

Each row is a compact snapshot of one order. The entire row is clickable: select anywhere on it to open the order drawer. A row shows:

The product’s picture — its rendered file, or its material colors — then the order number, the customer, and the channel it came from.
Its ship-by date: “ship by <date>” when on track (amber when the date is close), or past ship-by in red when it is overdue.
A status dot and label, a single plain-language word for where the order is, such as Printing or Shipped. Every label is defined in Order statuses.
The order’s items, and a five-step progress tracker — Placed, Queued, Printing, Packed, Shipped — with the current step marked (red when the order is stopped) and, for multi-part orders, how many parts are printed.
Two money figures: Total (what your customer paid you, an estimate) and Net (total minus production and postage, an estimate).

On a shipped row, the tracking number is a link. Selecting it opens the carrier’s tracking page in a new tab without opening the drawer. A Load more button at the bottom pulls in the next batch of orders when there is more than one page.

Why the money is an estimate

PrintPort never sees what your customer actually paid, because that money goes to you through your own store. The Total figure is estimated from your real past orders, so Net is an estimate as well. Your Cost, the make cost charged to your card, is exact. See How you get paid.

The order drawer

Opening any order shows the order drawer with the full order detail. On a wide screen it docks beside the list, so the list stays usable while an order is open; on smaller screens it slides over the page. It is the same drawer used throughout your Workspace, and it contains five panels. Close it with the Esc key or the X — or, when it slides over the page, a click outside it.

Timeline: A milestone timeline of what has actually happened: placed, payment confirmed, production started, packed, shipped via the carrier, and delivered. Only real events appear. If the order has not shipped yet, its ship-by line appears here.
Productionper part: Every part of the order with its own state (Queued, Printing, Printed, Packing, Packed, Shipped) plus an “X of Y printed” tally. If a part failed on the printer, it reads Reprinting: PrintPort re-runs it automatically, so you see progress rather than a failure.
Items: The products in the order. If a line item’s SKU does not match anything in your catalog, it is flagged with a No match chip, which indicates that you need to map it.
Order economics: What the customer paid (an estimate), the production cost charged to your card, postage billed by Shippo, and the resulting net. Net ≈ customer total − production − postage.
Shipping: The delivery address and, once the order has shipped, a tracking link (the truck icon) to the carrier’s page.

The money model, on every order

PrintPort charges your card the make cost to produce the order. On a marketplace order, the shipping label bills to your own connected Shippo account, separately from the card charge. There is no payout or escrow; your customer pays you through your store. Custom orders work differently: the full total was prepaid at checkout, normally by you, so the drawer reads “Your card isn’t charged.” See Custom orders.

When an order needs you, the drawer leads with a banner and a single action: Retry card, Approve, Map product, Request refund, or Get help with this. Each action previews exactly what it will do before you confirm. The full set of recovery actions is covered in Fix order problems.

Search and live updates

The search box above the list matches on order number, customer name, tracking number, channel, and item name or SKU, so you can find one order by nearly anything you remember about it. The count on each tab updates to reflect your matches.

When you arrive here from a channel row on the Finance page, a channel chip appears (for example, “shopify”) and filters the book to that one storefront. Select the chip’s X to clear it and see every order again.

Live updates

You never have to reload this page. PrintPort maintains a per-seller live beacon. The moment any of your orders changes, whether a print finishes, a label prints, or a card clears, the Orders page refreshes itself in place. An “updates live” marker confirms it is connected. The same beacon keeps your Overview, Finance, and Catalog pages current.

What this page does not do

Orders is where you monitor and recover, not where you edit. There is no control here to change an address, swap options, cancel, or reship. Anything beyond the five recovery actions hands off to Support. See Fix order problems and Refunds & replacements.

Next steps

Order statusesEvery status label and whether it needs you.Fix order problemsUnmatched SKUs, declined cards, and Support handoffs.Automatic vs manualLet orders flow, or approve each one first.Tracking & deliveryTracking, delivery windows, and what “late” means.Refunds & replacementsRequesting a refund or a reship for a customer.How you get paidThe money model, and why there is no payout.

The facts line and Next action#

The five tabs#

Reading an order row#

The order drawer#

Search and live updates#