Shipments

A purchase order can arrive in more than one physical delivery — a split container, a back-order, part of the order sent ahead of the rest. The Shipments card on the Payment & Delivery tab of the PO detail page records each delivery separately: carrier, tracking number, status, dates, weight, package count, and — optionally — exactly which line items (and how many units of each) are in that particular delivery.

Shipments are informational. Recording one doesn’t move inventory or change the order’s status — that still happens through Receiving. Shipments are available on every plan.

Adding a shipment

On the Payment & Delivery tab, click Add Shipment on the Shipments card. The form covers:

Carrier — pick from your configured carriers, or leave it as None.
Tracking Number — once you’ve picked a carrier that has a tracking-link template and entered a tracking number, the dialog shows a clickable Tracking URL Preview so you can check the link before saving. A carrier without a template (the built-in Other) never shows one.
Shipping Method — Express, Standard, Economy, Freight/LTL, or Pickup — or None to leave it unset.
Status — Pending, Label Created, Shipped, In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered, Exception, or Returned. A new shipment starts as Pending.
Shipped Date, Estimated Arrival, and Delivered Date.
Weight (kg) and Package Count (defaults to 1).
Notes — free text.

You can add as many shipments as an order needs. They’re numbered Shipment #1, #2, … in creation order — the numbers are positions, not fixed labels, so deleting a shipment renumbers the ones after it. Shipments can be added, edited, or deleted only while the order isn’t Completed or Cancelled — on those orders the card is read-only.

Assigning line items to a shipment

The add/edit dialog’s Items in this Shipment section is optional — a shipment doesn’t need to list what it carries. When you do assign items, the table shows every line on the PO with six columns:

Product and SKU — which line it is.
Ordered — the line’s ordered quantity.
In other shipments — units of that line already assigned to the order’s other shipments.
Remaining — Ordered minus what’s assigned elsewhere (never shown below zero).
This shipment — the quantity you’re assigning here.

Leave a line blank (or 0) to leave it out of this shipment. A shipment doesn’t have to cover every line, and a line can be split across shipments however you like.

On longer orders — more than five lines — a search box filters the table by product, variant, or SKU. Select all fills every empty visible row with its Remaining quantity and Clear all empties them; while a search is active they act only on the matching lines and relabel accordingly (e.g. Select 3 found).

Quantities must be whole numbers of 0 or more — that’s the only thing that blocks saving. Assigning more than a line’s ordered quantity across shipments is allowed: the dialog shows an Over-allocation notice instead of blocking, and the shipment carries an Over-allocated badge on its card. It’s a flag for you to review, nothing more — shipments never affect receiving.

Editing and deleting a shipment

Each shipment’s ⋯ menu offers Edit shipment and Delete shipment. Editing reopens the same dialog with all details and line-item assignments filled in. Deleting removes the shipment and its line-item assignments after a confirmation; receiving records are not affected, and a deletion can’t be undone.

Tracking and viewing items

Two buttons appear on a shipment when they have something to show:

Track — opens the carrier’s tracking page. It appears when the shipment has a tracking number and a carrier whose tracking-link template is set (see Settings → Carriers). The built-in Other carrier has no template, so shipments on it don’t get a Track button.
View items — appears when line items are assigned. It lists product, SKU, and quantity for every assigned line, with a total, and flags any over-allocated line.

Each shipment also shows an at-a-glance summary — status, tracking number (or “No tracking”), assigned units and lines, shipped/ETA/delivered dates, weight, shipping method, and the package count when there’s more than one.

Receiving straight from a shipment

A shipment shows a Receive button when the order is in a receiving status (In Progress, Partially Received, or Received), the shipment has line items assigned, and it isn’t already marked Delivered.

Clicking it opens the standard receive dialog prefilled with the shipment’s quantities, capped per line at what’s still receivable — so you don’t re-type quantities you already recorded on the shipment. Adjust anything that differed from what actually arrived, then confirm. Confirming the receipt also marks the shipment Delivered; if that status update fails for any reason, the receipt itself still goes through.

Because a Delivered shipment loses its Receive button, receiving against the same shipment a second time means editing its status back off Delivered first.

Where shipments show up elsewhere

The Order Information card’s header includes a shipments tile — the first shipment’s carrier plus a count when there are more (e.g. “FedEx +2 more”), a plain count when no carrier is set, or “No shipments”. Clicking it jumps to the Payment & Delivery tab. On orders with a linked Xero bill, the accounting link takes that slot instead.
A connected AI assistant with write access can list, add, edit, and delete shipments too — see What the assistant can read and Operating purchase orders.