An order is one piece of paid work for a client. Most orders are created automatically when a client buys from a service page. Your team can also place orders for clients. Every order moves through the same flow: the client sends their requirements, your team does the work and delivers it, and the client approves it or asks for changes.

Where it lives#

What	Menu path	Route
All orders	Work → Orders	/orders
Place an order for a client	Work → Orders → New order	/orders/new
One order	Click an order	/orders/ORD-482917
Statuses and order rules	Settings → Orders	/settings/orders
The client's orders	Portal → Orders	/orders

The order flow#

Status	Meaning	What moves it on
Awaiting brief	Waiting for the client to submit the brief.	The client submits their requirements, or your team clicks Start order.
In progress	With the team.	Your team delivers the work.
Delivered	Handed over, waiting for the client's approval.	The client approves (or auto-approve does), or asks for a revision.
In revision	The client asked for changes.	Your team delivers again.
Completed	Delivered and accepted.	Final, unless a revision reopens it.
Cancelled	Stopped, usually after a refund.	Only through Cancel order.

The flow moves by itself as the work happens:

1. An order whose service asks no questions skips Awaiting brief and starts at In progress.
2. When the client submits the brief, the order moves to In progress.
3. When your team delivers, it moves to Delivered.
4. If the client asks for a revision, it moves to In revision. The next delivery moves it back to Delivered.
5. When the client approves the last delivery, it moves to Completed.

Delivered means "handed over, waiting on the client". Completed means the client accepted it. Watch the Delivered column for work that needs a nudge.

Set a status by hand#

Sometimes work happens where the flow can't see it. Anyone who can deliver the order can change its status from the status pill beside the order number. Moving to Completed by hand asks first, because it tells the client. Cancelled isn't in the pill: cancelling is its own action because it decides what happens to the money.

Custom statuses#

In Settings → Orders → Statuses:

• Rename and recolour the six built-in statuses, and give each a description shown to your team and the client. The built-ins can't be removed or reordered, because the flow depends on them.
• Click New status to add your own, such as "On hold" or "Waiting on a third party". Custom statuses sort after the flow and are only ever set by hand from the status pill. They get their own tab on the orders list.
• Click Save statuses.

Requirements (the brief)#

The brief is the list of questions the service asks. It is created with the order and the client answers it in the portal.

• After paying, a new client lands on Fill in your requirements.
• The order page's Requirements tab shows each answer, or Not answered.
• An order of several services gets one combined brief.
• If the brief is still missing after a day, ClientOS emails the client a reminder, and again every few days.

Chase or start without the brief#

When an order is waiting on its brief, the order page shows Waiting for the client's requirements with two buttons:

• Chase brief sends the client one reminder email. It doesn't change the status. You can chase again the next day.
• Start order moves the order to In progress without the requirements. You confirm with Start anyway. The client can still fill in the form later.

On the orders list, the Briefs outstanding figure and the Chase these briefs panel show paid orders that can't start. Select several and use Chase the brief to email them all.

Deliver work#

1. Open the order and go to the Delivery tab.
2. Click Deliver now.
3. Write Your message to the client: what's included, where to start, anything they should check.
4. Attach the work itself: documents, images, video, a zip.
5. Click Deliver work.

The client is emailed that the work is ready and can approve it or ask for a revision. The delivery shows Waiting on the client until they answer.

If the service has a team checklist with steps still open, the dialog says so. Depending on your order rules, you can still deliver or delivery is blocked until the steps are done on the Todo board.

Milestones#

For larger jobs, split the order into stages that are delivered and approved one at a time.

1. On the Delivery tab, click Split into milestones, or Add milestone later.
2. Give each a Name (for example "Wireframes" or "Final files"), What it covers and an optional Due date.
3. Deliver each milestone in order with Deliver milestone.

The order completes when every milestone is approved. You can remove a milestone nothing has been delivered against. An order can have up to 20 milestones.

Digital products#

A service set to Digital product delivers itself. Once the order is placed and its requirements are answered, the files are delivered automatically and the client can download them from the order. See Services and the store.

Revisions and approvals#

The client answers a delivery from their order page:

• Approve delivery: tells the team they're happy and completes the delivery. They can add a note.
• Request revision: they describe what should change. The order moves to In revision, and a task is added to the Todo board for the order's owner.

When the team delivers again, the client is asked to approve the new delivery.

Auto-approve#

If clients often go quiet after a delivery, turn on Auto-approve after a wait in Settings → Orders and set the Days before auto-approval (1 to 90). A delivery the client hasn't answered is then accepted for them, and the team is told. While it's waiting, the client sees how long remains before it is approved automatically. Auto-approve is off by default.

Order rules#

In Settings → Orders, below the statuses. Click save under the rules; the statuses have their own save.

Rule	What it does	Default
Lock completed orders	Nobody changes a completed order's due date, owner or lines unless the client asks for a revision and it reopens.	Off
Re-open on revision	A completed order can still take a revision request and moves to In revision, within a set number of days after delivery (empty means no limit). A delivered order waiting on the client can always take one.	On, 30 days
Ask for a rating	Clients can rate an order when they accept its delivery.	On
Auto-approve after a wait	See above.	Off, 7 days
Add checklists to new orders	Each new order gets its service's checklist as steps on the Todo board.	On
When checklist steps are open at the final delivery	Warn, then deliver, or Don't allow delivery. Milestones before the last are never held up.	Warn

The order page#

The order page has three tabs:

• Requirements: the client's answers, with Chase brief while they're missing.
• Conversation: the order's chat with the client (or Notes if you don't have chat access). See Messages and files.
• Delivery: deliveries, milestones and the client's answers.

The side panels show:

• the client, with Open client, Their orders and New ticket about this order
• Details: placed date, due date, the service for each line, the requirements state, the order's value, and its cost and margin if you have the Costs and margin permission
• tags and ratings
• Time: how long the order has been running against its due date
• team notes and the order's tasks

The actions at the top let you assign an owner (Assign to me), follow the order to be notified of changes, and open the menu for:

Action	What it does
Edit order	Change the Due date, Owner, Placed by and Lines. Changed lines are repriced.
Duplicate order	A new order for the same client with the same lines at today's prices. No payment, invoice or brief answers come with it.
Create an invoice	Raise an invoice from the order's lines.
Cancel order	See Cancellation and refunds.
Delete order	Removes the order, its lines, brief, deliveries, notes, files, chat and board card for good. Invoices and payments stay, no longer linked. To stop work, cancel instead.

Place an order for a client#

Use this for work agreed outside the store, or to record work already paid for elsewhere.

1. Go to Work → Orders and click New order.
2. Under Client and lines, pick the Client and add lines from your store or as custom lines with your own price.
3. Set Placed by: who at the client asked for it, or The agency.
4. Under Price, optionally add a discount of your own. It comes off after volume discounts and any coupon.
5. Under Details, set a Due date, Owner and optional Coupon code.
6. Under Invoice, choose:
   • Not yet: raise it later from the order, or never.
   • As a draft: written from the lines for you to check before it goes out.
   • Send it now: issued and sent with the order, payable online. Choose to send the pay link by Email, Notification and, if Messages is on, Inbox.
   • Existing invoice: link an invoice already raised for this client.
7. Click Place order. The client is emailed that the order was placed.

The orders list#

Work → Orders shows every order you can see.

• The figures across the top: Open, Late, Due in 7 days, Unassigned and Briefs outstanding.
• Status tabs, one per status including your own.
• Search by order, service or customer, and filter by Client, Tag, Brief (still outstanding or complete), Placed date and Order value.
• Quick view: Recent, Top value, Due soon or Custom sort.
• A column manager to choose columns: order, service, customer, items, brief, started, due, time left, owner, total, status, tags.

Bulk actions and export#

Select orders to:

• Assign an owner
• Add or remove tags (tags are internal; clients never see them)
• Chase the brief (one email per order, at most once a day)
• Export as CSV

The Export button in the header downloads the current filtered list as CSV.

Cancellation and refunds#

When the client asks#

A client owner or admin can click Request cancellation on their order and say why. Nothing changes on the order until you decide. A banner on the order page shows the request.

• Approve: opens the cancellation dialog below, with Approve and cancel.
• Decline: say Why not. The order carries on and the client is emailed your reason.

The client can withdraw their request while it's waiting.

Cancel an order#

Use Cancel order from the order's menu (or Approve on a client's request). The dialog shows what was paid and lets you decide:

1. Refund amount. It starts at what was paid, less the gateway's likely fee if Keep the gateway fee is on. Lower it for a partial refund.
2. Where the refund goes:

Option	What happens
Account credit	Added to the client's balance and spent first on their next order or invoice. No fee is kept.
Back to the card or PayPal	Sent back through Stripe or PayPal to whatever paid. Not available for money paid from credit or crypto.
Refunded by hand	You send it yourself, for example by crypto or bank transfer, and record it with its reference.
No refund	The order stops and the money stays paid. You can refund later from the invoice.

3. What's still owed. For an unpaid or part-paid invoice: Close what's still owed (voids it, or credits it down to what was paid) or Keep it open. Overdue reminders stop either way.
4. Add a Message to the client and a reason for the order's history.
5. Click Cancel order.

Any delivery still waiting on the client is withdrawn, and the order's chat closes.

Projects#

Projects group a client's orders by site. Create and edit them on the client's page under Projects: one per site, with a name, address and team-only notes. Clients see their projects and the orders under each at portal Projects. An empty project can be deleted.

What the client sees#

In the portal under Orders, clients see every order with its status and what's Waiting on you. On an order they can:

• fill in the requirements, and change them until the order is finished
• follow progress, and see your checklist steps if you chose Show progress to the client
• chat with your team about the order
• download deliveries, Approve delivery or Request revision
• rate a delivery under How did we do?
• see what they're paying for
• request cancellation (owners and admins only)

Client viewers can read orders but not approve, answer requirements or upload. See The client portal.

Permissions#

Permission	Lets someone
See orders	See every order.
Their own orders	See and deliver only orders assigned to them.
See prices	See order values and totals.
Place an order	Place and duplicate orders.
Edit an order	Edit details, lines, tags and notes, and chase briefs.
Assign work	Change an order's owner.
Deliver any order	Start, deliver and set the status of any order.
Cancel or refund	Cancel orders and decide on client cancellation requests.
Delete an order	Delete orders.
Export orders	Export to CSV.

Tips#

• Set a Default owner on each service so orders never land unassigned.
• Turn on Auto-approve after a wait once your clients know about it. It stops finished work sitting in Delivered for weeks.
• Use milestones for anything longer than a couple of weeks. Clients approve smaller pieces, and you find problems earlier.
• Prefer Account credit for refunds where the client is likely to buy again. No gateway fee is lost.
• Add custom statuses sparingly. The built-in flow is what moves orders automatically.