Create a draft order in Shopify for a phone order
A customer phones in an order instead of checking out online. A draft order is how you take it: you build the order on their behalf in the admin, then send them an invoice with a checkout link so they can pay. This tutorial takes one phone order for Maya Chen: two Trail Crew Tees, one Summit Hoodie, and gift wrap.
Checked · Platform Shopify admin, desktop steps · Docs read 11 November 2026 · Read time 7 minutes
The worked example
| Customer | Maya Chen |
| 2 × Trail Crew Tee, $28.00 | $56.00 |
| 1 × Summit Hoodie, $45.00 | $45.00 |
| 1 × Gift wrap, custom item | $5.00 |
| Subtotal | $106.00 |
| Shipping, flat rate | $12.00 |
| Total before tax | $118.00 |
Download the intake sheet: phone-order-intake.csv (359 bytes).
The sheet to fill in during the call: customer details, each item with quantity and price, and the line totals. The three lines in the file add to the $106.00 subtotal in the slip above.
1Open Drafts and create the order
From your Shopify admin, go to Orders, then Drafts, and click Create order. A new draft has no order information filled in, so you add every detail yourself. If this customer orders by phone often, you can also duplicate a past order instead: open the order, click Duplicate, and a draft is created with the same line items and customer details. Discounts and shipping rates are not duplicated, so you still set those yourself.
2Add the two tees
Click Product, search for the Trail Crew Tee, select it, set the quantity to 2, and click Done. The product picker shows the available inventory for each product. If a product has no inventory left and overselling is not turned on for it, a warning icon appears next to it. You can still add the product to oversell it, but the customer will see an out of stock error at checkout if the inventory is still zero when they pay.
3Add the hoodie
Click Product again, search for the Summit Hoodie, select it, set the quantity to 1, and click Done. Check the quantities on the draft before you move on: the draft should show two tees at $28.00 and one hoodie at $45.00, which is $56.00 plus $45.00, or $101.00 of products.
4Add gift wrap as a custom item
Gift wrap is not a product in the catalogue, so add it as a custom item. Click Custom item, enter the name Gift wrap, the price 5.00, and the quantity 1, then click Add. A custom item is a product, service, or fee that you add to an order but that does not exist in your admin as a regular product. Two checkboxes are offered in the dialog: Item is taxable if the item should be taxed, and Item is a physical product if it is a physical item. Gift wrap is physical, so check that box. The subtotal is now $106.00.
5Add the customer
Add Maya Chen to the draft so the invoice goes to the right person and the tax is calculated for her address. If she is already a customer, search for her profile and add it. If she is new, create her profile from the email and phone number on the intake sheet. You can also start from an existing customer profile, which fills in the email and addresses for you.
6Set the shipping rate
Add a shipping rate of $12.00, the flat rate for this order. Draft orders can hold a shipping rate, so the invoice total includes it. The total before tax is now $106.00 plus $12.00, or $118.00. Shopify adds tax once the customer and their address are on the draft, using the tax settings for that address. This tutorial states no tax figure: the tax depends on the customer's address and your store's tax settings, and it is shown on the draft once the customer is added.
7Reserve the items, then send the invoice
If the tees and hoodie are low in stock, reserve the items in the draft so other customers cannot buy them while Maya decides. Then click Send invoice. By default the invoice email contains a link to a checkout where Maya can pay for the order. The other ways to finish a draft are to Accept payment from the customer yourself, to Set payment terms, or to save the order as a draft and come back to it from the Drafts page. When payment is accepted, an order is created for it on the Orders page.
The arithmetic, checked
The figures were recomputed in Python from the same inputs:
| Line | Quantity | Unit price | Line total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trail Crew Tee, Medium | 2 | $28.00 | $56.00 |
| Summit Hoodie, Large | 1 | $45.00 | $45.00 |
| Gift wrap, custom item | 1 | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| Subtotal | $106.00 | ||
| Shipping, flat rate | $12.00 | ||
| Total before tax | $118.00 |
The total before tax is $118.00. Tax is added by Shopify once the customer and address are set. The invoice total will be higher than $118.00 by the tax on this order.
Held at the counter
Zero inventory is a checkout error, not a draft error. A draft lets you add a product with no inventory left, and only warns you with an icon. The customer hits the out of stock error later, at checkout. Check the inventory shown in the product picker before you send the invoice.
Duplicating drops the discount and the shipping. When you duplicate an order or a draft order, the products, customer, notes, and tags carry over, but discounts and shipping rates do not. A duplicated draft with no shipping rate sends an invoice with no shipping on it until you add the rate back.
A saved draft is not an order. Saving the draft only stores it on the Drafts page. No payment is taken and nothing ships until the customer pays through the invoice or you accept payment. No order number exists until then.
How this was checked
Each step above was traced to Shopify's help page Creating draft orders, opened 11 November 2026. The desktop steps on that page are the steps in this tutorial. The figures were recomputed in Python 3.12.3 from the same inputs and agree to the cent, and the line totals in the intake sheet add to the $106.00 subtotal. No live Shopify store was used: no account was created and no admin screen was clicked through, so the invoice and the checkout link are as documented, not as run. Shopify changes its admin, so if a label on your screen differs, the help page linked below is the current source.
Sources
- Creating draft orders — Shopify's help pages: the full create-draft steps, custom items, inventory warnings, reserving items, and the invoice, payment, and payment-terms options.