Orders — Partial Shipments

Use Partial shipments when part of an order is ready to leave now, but the rest needs to follow later.

Typical examples:

not enough stock is currently available in pickable locations
one item is backordered
you want to despatch the ready items now and complete the order later

What partial shipment does

When you create a partial shipment, ParcelPilot:

creates a shipment for only the quantities being sent now
deducts inventory only for the quantities shipped now
clears reservation only for the quantities shipped now
leaves the remaining quantities still outstanding on the order
keeps the order open until the remaining quantities are either shipped or manually cancelled as no longer required

Once all outstanding quantities have been shipped or cancelled across one or more steps, the order can move to fully fulfilled / complete.

Because ParcelPilot separates order lifecycle from shipment completion, a partially shipped order can legitimately show:

Order Status: Complete
Fulfilment Status: Partially fulfilled - 1 outstanding
Latest Shipment Status: Delivered

This means the first shipment has already been delivered, but the order still has outstanding quantity that can be shipped later or cancelled.

When to use it

Use a partial shipment when:

the full order cannot be shipped today
stock is short for one or more lines
you want to hold some items back intentionally

Do not use it when the whole order is ready. In the normal case, leave the partial option off and create a standard full shipment.

Single-order workflow

Open the order in Orders.
Select Create shipment.
If all stock is available, continue as normal and create the full shipment.
If the full order cannot currently be shipped, ParcelPilot shows Full shipment unavailable.
Open Ship available items (Partial shipment).
Review and adjust the quantities to send now.
Create the shipment.

What happens next:

the shipment stores only the shipped quantities
the remaining quantities stay on the order as outstanding
a later shipment uses the remaining outstanding quantities, not the quantities already shipped
if the remaining quantities will never ship, use Cancel Remaining on the affected order line instead of creating a dummy shipment

Bulk shipment workflow

Bulk shipment creation stays aimed at the normal “ship the full order” flow.

if an order can ship in full, bulk create works as normal
if an order needs a partial shipment, ParcelPilot should not silently guess per-line quantities in bulk
orders needing manual review should be handled from the single-order Create shipment flow

This keeps bulk actions fast and safe, while the single-order modal handles the line-by-line partial decision.

Cancelling the remainder

If part of the order has already shipped and the remaining units will never leave the warehouse, use the manual Cancel Remaining action on the order.

To cancel outstanding quantities:

Open the order in Orders.
Click Cancel Remaining in the page header.
Select the outstanding line and quantity to cancel.
Add a reason if useful.
Confirm the action.

use this when some items are being despatched now and a specific outstanding item or quantity will never be shipped
typical reasons include customer cancellation, refund, out of stock, damage, write-off, or the stock no longer being required
it cancels only the currently outstanding unshipped quantity for the selected line
it does not create a shipment
it does not create fake tracking
it does not reduce physical stock
it releases any remaining reservation for that line
it keeps an audit trail of who cancelled the quantity and the optional reason
once all quantities are either shipped or cancelled, ParcelPilot can treat the order as complete / closed
do not use this for items that may still be shipped later

Use this when the outstanding balance has been cancelled, refunded, written off, or is no longer required operationally.

Important:

if the customer needs a refund, process the refund separately in Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento
ParcelPilot does not infer fulfilment cancellation automatically from refunds or channel financial status
warehouse fulfilment quantity stays separate from refund/accounting status

Inventory, reservations and order status

For partial shipments:

only shipped quantities are deducted from stock
only shipped quantities are cleared from reservation
unshipped quantities stay reserved for the order
manually cancelled quantities are not shipped and do not deduct stock
manually cancelled quantities release any remaining reservation for that line
the order is not treated as fully complete until the remaining quantities are shipped or cancelled

Operator-facing status badges should be read like this:

Order Status: stored lifecycle status on the order
Fulfilment Status: whether the order still has outstanding quantity
Latest Shipment Status: tracking state of the latest shipment only

This means the first shipment reduces only the part that actually left the warehouse, and the final shipment clears the rest.

Sales-channel resync note

ParcelPilot keeps Cancel Remaining as an explicit warehouse decision.

if the sales channel changes the ordered quantity later, ParcelPilot keeps the cancelled quantity attached to the same upstream line when that line has a stable channel line identifier
if a sales channel line does not carry a stable line identifier, ParcelPilot falls back to line order as a best effort
in those fallback cases, avoid reordering or restructuring channel lines after using Cancel Remaining, because the cancellation may attach to a different line on the next sync

Documents

Operational documents should reflect the shipment you are creating:

delivery notes and shipment-linked documents should show the quantities being shipped in that shipment
packing slips are often printed earlier in the workflow, before shipment booking

If a warehouse operator knows only part of the order is shipping, the partial decision should be made in the shipment step, not by editing the original order lines down permanently.

Ecommerce / channel updates

What gets pushed back upstream depends on the ecommerce platform:

some channels support true line-level partial shipment updates
some only support order-level tracking or status updates
some may keep the partial shipment internal only

ParcelPilot uses the channel’s partial-shipment capability rules so it does not overstate fulfilment upstream.

Important:

a partial shipment should not tell an ecommerce platform that the full order has shipped
the final shipment is the one that should complete the order upstream where the channel supports that behaviour

Sending the remaining items later

When the remaining stock is ready:

Open the same order again.
Create another shipment.
ParcelPilot should use the remaining outstanding quantities.
Book the second shipment with its own tracking number(s).

The later shipment is a new shipment record, with its own labels and tracking. Where supported, that shipment can also be pushed back to the ecommerce platform.

If the remaining quantity will not ship, cancel the outstanding balance on the original order line instead of creating a dummy shipment.

Troubleshooting

Why can’t I create another shipment? The order must still have outstanding quantities. Fully shipped orders should not allow another standard shipment.
What if the rest of the order is cancelled after a partial shipment? Use Cancel Remaining on the relevant order line. This closes the operational outstanding quantity without creating another shipment.
Why does ParcelPilot show Full shipment unavailable? Some items are not currently available in pickable locations for the full order, but there may still be enough stock to send part of it now.
Will the customer get tracking for the second shipment? Usually yes where the ecommerce platform supports shipment/tracking sync for that channel. The exact behaviour depends on the integration.
Does partial shipment change the original order lines? No. It records what shipped now and what remains outstanding.