How can I print a draft order without finalizing the sale?

[petgrocer]

Feature request:

We often need to print and/or email a copy of a draft order for approval, or for picking purposes, prior to the order being finalized. We need a way to print it. 

You can't select 'send invoice' because that finalizes the sale and then forces that sale into that day's accounting. We only allow our sales to occur on the same day as the payment to simplify the end of month accounting. Given the challenges already present via Stocky (inventory control for POS with Shopify) we have enough challenges with accounting and need to reduce opportunities for error.

[CRCWHOLESALE]

We also need to print draft orders!!!! Please fix this problem!!!!!

[caseyp808]

Agreed!

[petgrocer]

@Shopify help! We continue to struggle with this. We can't even copy and paste the draft screen because the photos mess up the list. We need to print a packing slip prior to the order being completed. 

[WalkerWineCo]

Any indication Shopify reads these posts and acts in their clients best interest? They're quite good at collecting their fees, but what about addressing a topic important to 2926 (as of this posting) clients?

[petgrocer]

Trying to bump this up again. We really need a way to email a copy and/or print a copy of the draft order. Adding that link for them to pay online doesn't help us to pick the order at all in store. We need to be able to print a packing list in order to pick it prior to payment. @Shopify  any work arounds that aren't $50 USD a month? Help!

[pooya_badiee]

This is how I worked around it. requires a developer

I created a custom app that hosts the draft order via a link as a pdf. (website.com/draft-order/{id}.pdf).  In the end, I copy and paste the pdf link into the email body.
Not perfect, but better than nothing.

[petgrocer]

Thanks for the idea. We aren't coders, we aren't a rich large company. Nickel and dimed to death already with paid apps, so we aren't going to pay someone for something that needs to be standard in the system.

We are stuck with manually doing copy and paste and then editing it to correct the formatting, which is another example of how using this system takes way more hours than our old true POS system. There is no happy marriage of POS and retail with omnichannel that we have found yet. We have an amazing powerful POS system that works and does everything you could want and more - but it isn't online. 

[sasta]

Agreed!  Need to be able to PRINT DRAFT orders. So tired of updates that do NOT make my job easier and the  BASIC things that are needed are ignored. (ie. search button at the far right - when it used to be a ready space to fill in ON THE LEFT - WHO is Shopify serving?  TINY ecommerce businesses that can see all their orders, products, etc on the first page??) 

[Zapfor_Apps]

Try Order Printer Pro -> https://apps.shopify.com/order-printer-pro

It can print draft orders, up to 50 orders/month on free plan.

I am not affiliated with the app  🙂

[LuckyNS]

We went this route as a work around for the printing draft orders limitations. Order Print Pro integrates with POS pretty well.  However, in order to print anything, the order must be closed out to some extent. Checked out/unpaid, etc on pos.  (Drafts can be printed on admin)  Also,  after that, changes can only be made via returns or exchanges, which then creates new tickets and no option to add on new items without exchanges.  

Tldr: order printer pro can print drafts as admin only.  There is not a pos option for this.  Have been going through quotes apps, still no solution yet. 

[petgrocer]

@Shopify  any updates? Lots of things being changed, like the font and rounded corners. How about adding in allowing us to print draft orders? Thanks!

[DebSumCA]

Any update? I came here to find a solution to this? I can't believe that a draft order can't be printed??

[Roberto47]

I add myself to the voices of unimpressed customers who're struggling with printing a copy of any draft orders.

It's hilarious how Shopify is spending tons of money in nice marketing AD for their platform to lure new customers in while forgetting that they have a huge base of existing customers who needs to be listened to. 

But hey, maybe they realized that as we're already in and now with a running business it's not a great idea to dump Shopify for some other platform, they don't really need to address our needs as we're stuck here and we cannot easily move elsewhere. 

[CADbaristainst]

adding our voice to the chorus. 

please allow draft orders to be printed without charging us more money for the feature

[Motohansa1]

We need this too.  We can't understand how this is not the simplest addition.

[arayard]

It's honestly hilarious that a platform with all of these bells and whistles rely on 3rd party's to charge their customers for simple print outs for orders or draft invoices. Like???

[petgrocer]

This is Shopify's business model. It's a double dip. Make money from the app creators and make money from the end user. They have zero motivation to correct the issues in their software service. 

[anderags]

I am so surprised this has not been done yet. Seems pretty easy to implement for Shopify

[Anchoright]

Would like to add my voice to this. Seems a logical thing to have. Please look to sort ASAP as I'm inputting orders into other systems to create picking lists.

[Valerie_Frankli]

We also need this! Customers want it for their accounting departments before they'll check out, so I have to create the invoice twice, once in a doc and once in Shopify.

[Pro_Spec]

BUMP - We need this also, how hard is it to allow printing order drafts?.... 

[nwaPLASMA]

Ditto, I have to enter all my info into a work doc invoice (that I created) to send to my customers who are required to get a PO before they can pay. 

[labackbeat]

BUMP! OFFER DRAFT ORDER PRINTING AS A STANDARD FEATURE! It can't be that hard!

Wakeup Shopify! @Shopify It's the micro businesses that are keeping the platform going and will also keep the stock price up. Provide standard features we all ask for without forcing us to pay for apps. I would like to add that this would be a beneficial "standard" offering in my opinion and use of different software through my years in industry. Every software I have ever used had this feature to print a draft invoice. 

Let's GO!

-Frank

[emeray]

We also need this feature.

[FrancesN]

Any updates? We also need to be able to print or export as pdf the draft orders so we can send quotes to our customers and modifying them if they require any changed before finalizing it.

[GarrityTools]

I would also love to be able to export or print a draft order. It would also be great to be able to download an order as a .csv file. 

[hybridman7]

Hey guys- another frustrated Shopify merchant that has struggled with this same issue of not being able to print out draft orders. 
What we finally started doing is this:

1. AT the bottom of the draft order is a button you can check that says "Payment Due Later".

2. Click on that and choose: Payment due on receipt, or net 15/30, whatever your terms are

3. Create order

Now you can print it out as an order, but still unfulfilled/unpaid. I send this to our customers, and also print out/scan/save/attach a hard copy to the email, especially if it is processed as a wire transfer for international purchases. 

Its not perfect but it is a workaround...

[KYTCS]

I also need this feature. @Shopify please help!!!

[Lejend20]

the fact this isn't a native feature just about made my accounting team want to quit! We are a medium sized business and our customers work on net 30/procurement cycles. As such many require an order process like this:

1. They browse our website and select the items they want
2. They request a quote (Instead of checkout)
3. we send a PDF quote, with any necessary adjustments
4. They submit the quote to get a PO generated
5. We get the Po from them and we create/issue the order

We will be looking into some of the apps people have recommended on this thread. But all I can say is this is yet ANOTHER disappointment with shopify; we have had far too many. 

[petgrocer]

When we were first sold this system by the sales rep there were a lot of promises made, none of which they were able to deliver on. Lesson learned - I NEVER trust any software or hardware sales people anymore. I immediately go to the forums to look and see what pain points people have with a system before I jump ship. This was a painful and expensive lesson for us.

[Keitron]

It's crazy that this isn't fixed yet. I'll definetely move my store to other platform that allows better customization and has features that any basic store software should have, like exporting draft orders or quotes. 

I'm already looking into other platforms. When I decide on a suitable one to migrate my store, I will create a step by step tutorial on the migration to share with you.

[petgrocer]

Keep us informed of what you decide to do. We are still held hostage by this system, because the alternatives don't enable us the same remote work options. I'm curious to see if you find something that does the good parts of Shopify and removes the huge number of pain points. We look constantly, and have not found one.

[iamk9brands]

Hello everyone, I am new here and I just ran into this dilemma myself. Thank God someone else is trying to figure this out and you all have posted your questions, frustrations, and possible solutions here for a quick google search to find. After struggling with this for a couple of days, I finally settled on a quick and easy solution that satisfied my dilemma, and possibly the majority of you who are just looking for a way to print your Draft Orders for picking or just having an extra copy of the Draft Order without having to finalize the order first.

Once I create the Draft Order and send the invoice (email) to the customer, I simply right-clicked in the blank space of the order details area and chose "Print" from the menu (this is just the normal Browser options menu and not a menu generated by Shopify). The reason I chose to right-click in this area instead of using the main browser menu itself, is that I did not want to possibly have all the extra Shopify menu items or background graphics in the print. Once I chose "Print" from the popup menu and selected my physical printer, I set the custom settings as below:

 - Select Physical / Non-physical Printer (mine is an HP Color Laser Printer)

 - Set <Layout> to "Landscape" (this is important)

 - Keep <Paper Size> to "Letter" (or set to your preferred paper stock)

 - Set <Pages Per Sheet> to 2 (this is also important, you could set to 4 pages per sheet but the print gets to small)

 - Set <Scale> to "Default" or 100%

**If your Print Settings dialogue box shows a preview like mine, it should show a similar duplicate of the screen layout of your draft order. Go ahead and Print the page (or pages depending on how many items your customer has listed). Notice that the print preview also shows the variant picture and all of the customer / shipping / payment information as well.

Hopefully this graphic will help also:

You can play with these same settings to get slightly different results, but for me, I just wanted something I could fold in half and place on our order desk as a placeholder for when the product is picked and pre-processed. It also looks visually different from the Order Printouts, so it was easy to tell that this order had not yet been paid by the customer and is awaiting payment (which we would then transfer this Draft into a regular Order for Fulfillment).

This worked out great for me and my team and hopefully you will find it more helpful as a workaround instead of trying to switch platforms which is more costly than the time and expense we have already invested in growing our businesses on this platform. IJS.