Order processing is the daily rhythm of a UK online shop: check new orders, invoice, pack, ship, refund, repeat. Magento has a complete order lifecycle built in — Pending, Processing, Complete, Cancelled, Closed, Holding — with invoices, shipments and credit memos as linked records. This guide walks through the full flow, the edge cases UK merchants face weekly, and the shortcuts that turn order admin from a chore into a ten-minute routine.
The Orders grid and daily workflow • The order status lifecycle • Creating an invoice • Fulfilling a shipment • Refunds and credit memos • Editing or cancelling an order • Placing orders on behalf of customers • UK-specific requirements (VAT, returns, consumer rights) • FAQ
Open Sales › Orders. The grid shows every order with columns for order number, date, status, customer name, shipping address, grand total and shipping method. The default filter shows orders from all time — filter to “Status: Pending OR Processing” with a date range of “today” or “last 7 days” to focus on work that needs doing.
Daily routine for most UK merchants:
A busier store adds two checkpoints: a weekly review of orders stuck in Holding status (fraud checks, stock problems) and a monthly review of Closed orders for KPI reporting.
Magento uses two concepts: status (the human-readable label) and state (the underlying system phase). Six states with typical statuses inside them:
| State | Typical status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| New | Pending | Placed but not paid (payment awaiting capture or async payment like bank transfer). |
| Processing | Processing | Paid (captured) and ready to ship. The most common state for a week’s worth of work. |
| Complete | Complete | Fully invoiced and shipped. Terminal state for a happy-path order. |
| Canceled | Canceled | Cancelled before payment capture. No refund needed. |
| Closed | Closed | Refunded fully via credit memo. Terminal state for refunded orders. |
| Holded | On Hold | Paused manually by staff (for fraud review or stock check). |
Custom statuses can be added under Stores › Order Status: a UK store might add “Awaiting Stock” under the On Hold state, or “Out for Royal Mail Collection” under Processing.
An invoice is the financial record that captures payment and confirms revenue. Two patterns:
An invoice can be partial (invoicing only some line items, e.g., when part of the order is on back-order and ships separately). On Submit, Magento sends a confirmation email to the customer — the invoice PDF is attached.
The invoice record appears under Sales › Invoices and is linked to the parent order. Print it from the PDF download button for picking slips or paperwork-based filing.
The shipment record captures the physical dispatch. Click Ship on the order view:
The shipment record appears under Sales › Shipments and the order moves toward Complete. For stores with Royal Mail integration via Click & Drop, the tracking number is often auto-filled by the integration extension.
A partial shipment keeps the order in Processing until the final items ship. Customers receive one shipment email per dispatch.
Refunds in Magento go through a credit memo, not a direct “refund” button. Under an invoiced order, click Credit Memo:
The order moves to Closed if the refund is full; partial refunds keep it at Complete with a credit memo attached. UK law requires refunds within 14 days of the customer’s return notification for distance-sales consumers (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013), so establish a same-day refund habit.
Once an order is invoiced, Magento does not allow direct editing — financial integrity is preserved. Before invoice (Pending status), the Edit button at the top of the order view clones the order into a new one, letting you adjust products, shipping or billing. The original is cancelled and the new order takes its place.
Cancellation rules:
For phone orders, trade customers ordering via email, or resolving cart problems live, Admin staff can place an order in the back office. From Sales › Orders › Create New Order:
This flow also handles complex one-off cases like trade orders with a hand-negotiated discount — use the adjustment fee/refund fields to encode the discount, then email the invoice.
Three UK regulatory touch-points:
UK-ready Magento hosting with fast order admin
SmartXHosting Magento plans include Redis caching so the Orders grid stays responsive at 100,000+ records, plus UK-based support for payment gateway and carrier integration questions.
See Magento plansQ: How do I reprint an invoice or packing slip?
A: Open the order, scroll to Invoices or Shipments section, click the invoice/shipment number, then Print. The PDF regenerates on demand. For bulk printing (end of day picking), filter the Orders grid and use the mass action Print Packing Slips.
Q: Why does my order show “Pending” when the customer paid with a card?
A: Two causes. First, the payment gateway is in authorise-only mode — money is reserved but not captured. Invoice manually (click Invoice on the order) to capture. Second, the payment gateway is slow or silent — Stripe typically reports within seconds but bank APIs can take longer. Check Sales › Transactions for the gateway’s response.
Q: Can I reassign an order to a different customer?
A: Not through the UI. The order is tied to the customer email at placement. For merging duplicate accounts, custom scripts via the API reassign order records in bulk.
Q: How do I handle a partial refund for a damaged item?
A: Create a credit memo with Qty to Refund = 0 (keeps the line item intact on the invoice) but add a positive Adjustment Refund amount for the goodwill value. Issue refund through gateway. Customer keeps the (damaged) item and receives the partial refund.
Q: What if the payment gateway refund fails?
A: Check the gateway dashboard (Stripe, PayPal) for the failure reason — expired card, insufficient gateway balance, etc. Resolve at the gateway, then retry from the credit memo. If gateway refund is impossible (cancelled card), use “Refund Offline” and issue a bank transfer, recording the reference in the credit memo notes.
Q: How do I track orders by carrier for end-of-day reconciliation?
A: The Orders grid supports a “Shipping Method” column (enable via the gear icon). Filter by method to get a daily shipment list per carrier. Some merchants build a simple cron script that exports this CSV nightly for the 3PL or carrier portal.
Q: Where is the order delivery date tracked?
A: Core Magento does not track delivery dates — only shipment date. For delivery-date tracking, use a carrier integration extension that pulls tracking status back into the order record. Alternatively, SmartXHosting can recommend UK developers who add a Delivered status to the lifecycle via a custom module.