Not every sale starts at your checkout. Draft orders let you build an order by hand – for a phone order, an email inquiry, or a deal you negotiated – with your own prices, discounts, and payment terms, then either charge it, invoice it, or mark it paid yourself. ## Start a draft order Open **Orders → Create order**. Nothing is saved yet – add items, set prices, and fill in whatever you know so far. The first time you click **Save draft**, the draft is created and numbered (`D1`, `D2`, and so on). If you navigate away with unsaved changes, you're asked first. Every draft you haven't finished lives under the **Drafts** tab on your Orders page, split into **Open** and **Completed**. ## Add items - **Catalog products** – search your catalog and add them like you would to a cart, with their usual price as a starting point. - **Custom items** – for anything that isn't in your catalog, like a service, a repair, or a one-off piece. Give it a name, a price, a quantity, and a tax rate (or mark it not taxable). Toggle **Needs shipping** off for something like a service fee that shouldn't count toward shipping. You can edit the price and quantity of any line as you build the draft. ## Discounts and coupons - **Discount a line** – a percentage or a fixed amount off a single item, with an optional reason that's visible to the client. - **Discount the order** – a percentage or fixed amount taken off the whole order, applied after any coupon. - **Apply a coupon** – enter one of your store's coupon codes. It's checked against the draft's items just like it would be at checkout, and its use is only counted once the draft becomes a real order. ## Shipping and tax Pick one of your store's shipping methods, or add a **custom rate** with your own name and price for a one-off delivery arrangement. Turn **Charge taxes** off if the client pays tax-free prices – for example, a wholesale or export deal. ## Customer, note, tags, and PO number Add the customer (an existing one or a new email and address), an internal **note**, any **tags** you use to organize orders, and a **purchase order number** if your client gave you one. ## Hold stock Turn on **Hold stock** to set the draft's items aside while you finalize things with the client, so you don't oversell while you wait. Pick how long to hold it for – up to 365 days out. The hold updates automatically if you change products or quantities, and you can **Release stock** by hand at any time. If you don't create the order before the hold expires, the stock goes back on sale automatically and the draft stays open. > **Note:** Saving a draft never reserves stock on its own – only turning on **Hold stock** does. ## Send an invoice Instead of charging the client yourself, click **Send invoice**. They get an emailed link to a pay page with the draft's items and total, where they can pay by card or bank transfer (whichever you accept). The draft stays editable and shows **Invoice sent** – if you change something, resend it or **Copy link** to share the current version yourself. The order is created the moment they pay. ## Turn the draft into an order When you're ready to finish the draft, you have three ways to settle it: | Option | What happens | |--------|--------------| | **Mark as paid** | Creates the order as paid immediately – use this when you've already been paid, for example in cash or by a transfer outside YNS. | | **Payment due later** | Creates the order unpaid but ready to fulfill, on **payment terms** you choose: due on receipt, due on fulfillment, within a set number of days (7, 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90), or on a fixed date. The order shows as **Overdue** once the due date passes, but it's never automatically canceled. | | **Send invoice** (see above) | The order is only created once the client pays through their invoice link. | Whichever path you use, the order behaves like any other from then on – fulfillment, refunds, and invoices all work the same way. See [View and manage orders](/help/orders/manage-orders). ## Duplicate a draft, or start one from an order - **Duplicate** a draft to reuse it as a starting point for a similar order. - Open any existing order and choose **Create draft from order** to copy its items, customer, addresses, note, tags, and PO number into a new draft. Discounts and shipping aren't carried over, and bundles, sets, and subscription lines can't be copied – you'll see how many items were skipped. ## History Every draft keeps its own activity timeline, and you can leave internal comments on it just like on a regular order. Once a draft becomes an order, the order's own timeline shows that it was created from a draft. > **Tip:** Draft orders left untouched for a year are cleaned up automatically. ## FAQ ### Does a draft order use up an order number? No. A draft has its own `D` number and only becomes a real order – with its own order number – once you mark it paid, set payment terms, or the client pays the invoice. ### Can I change a draft after I've sent the invoice? Yes. The draft stays editable while the invoice is unpaid – make your changes and resend the invoice, or copy the updated link to share it yourself. ### What happens to a stock hold if I never finish the draft? It's released automatically once it expires, and the products go back on sale. The draft itself isn't deleted – it just sits in **Drafts → Open** without held stock. ### Can I use draft orders for wholesale clients? Yes – a draft order is one way to type up an order for any client by hand, wholesale included. If you're setting up recurring negotiated pricing and a self-serve ordering panel for a business buyer, see [Sell wholesale to business buyers](/help/orders/wholesale) instead. ### Does an invoice from a draft order count as my numbered invoice? The invoice link a client pays through shows the draft's items and total, but it's not the same as the numbered, sequential invoice document – generate that from the resulting order once it's paid. See [Generate invoices](/help/orders/invoices). ## What's next - See how orders created from drafts show up in your list in [View and manage orders](/help/orders/manage-orders). - Issue a proper numbered invoice once the order is paid in [Generate invoices](/help/orders/invoices). - Set up negotiated pricing and self-serve ordering for repeat buyers in [Sell wholesale to business buyers](/help/orders/wholesale).