One sale, four records
- Cart: what the shopper has picked up. It is saved the first time something needs it, such as an item being added, and the browser finds it again through a cookie, so it outlives the visit.
- Checkout: created from the cart when the shopper starts to pay. It adds what a sale needs and a basket does not: an email address, billing and delivery addresses, the delivery option chosen, shipping and tax.
- Order: the record of the sale, created when the checkout's invoice is paid in full.
- Invoice: what is owed, line by line, with the payments made against it.
When a checkout becomes an order, its lines, addresses, totals, fulfilments and invoice move to the order, the order gets its number, and the checkout itself is removed. The items bought leave the cart, and a cart left empty is deleted. From then on, everything about the sale happens on the order and the records around it.
A second way in: quotes
A signed-in customer can ask for a quote from their cart. Staff set its prices, and the customer orders at those prices through a normal checkout. See Quotes.
The modules around the sale
- Products: the catalogue, its categories and prices.
- Discounts: what comes off the price, automatically or with a code.
- Shipping: the delivery options a checkout offers and what they cost.
- Taxes: which tax provider works out the tax, for which addresses and products.
- Inventory: warehouses, stock levels and the fulfilments that send an order's items out.
Where to look when something is wrong
- A shopper's basket emptied? See Carts.
- The pay button stays disabled? The checkout is missing something it needs: see Checkout.
- A customer says they paid, but the order looks unpaid? The invoice and its transactions hold the answer: see Invoices and payments.
- Has it shipped? The order's fulfilments: see Inventory and fulfilment.
Developers building a store find the details in the commerce guide of the Developer Docs.