Orders

An order is the customer's booking. You dispatch it to a carrier, and it follows the shipment all the way to delivery and invoicing.

Order statuses

Pending Confirmed Assigned Completed Cancelled

Status	Meaning
Pending	Every new order starts here.
Confirmed	You clicked Confirm to accept the booking.
Assigned	The order was dispatched and has a shipment under way. This is set automatically.
Completed	Set automatically once every active shipment is delivered. You can also click Complete when that is true.
Cancelled	Cancel active shipments and invoices first; after that the order can be cancelled.

Creating an order

Go to Orders → New Order. The order number is filled in automatically, using your numbering prefix from Settings.
Choose the Customer. It must already exist in Contacts.
Choose the Origin and Destination from your saved Locations.
Set the Service Type, the Priority, and the requested pickup and delivery dates.
Add any Special Instructions. They are copied onto the shipment.
Click Save. The order is created as Pending.

Field	Notes
Order Number	Generated automatically, for example `ORD-2026-0001`.
Priority	Low, Normal, High or Urgent.
Customer	Required.
Origin / Destination	Saved locations.
Service Type	LTL, FTL, Air Freight, Sea Freight, Rail, Courier or Express. This sets the shipment mode when you dispatch: Air Freight becomes air, Sea Freight becomes sea, Rail becomes rail, and everything else becomes road.
Requested Pickup / Delivery	The customer's requested dates.
Special Instructions	Free text, copied to the shipment.

Dispatching an order

Dispatch is how an order becomes real work. You can dispatch an order while it is Pending or Confirmed, as long as it has no shipment yet.

Open the order and click Dispatch.
Choose the Carrier. Pick your own company for your own fleet, or a subcontractor.
Set the Pickup date. Add a Delivery date and Notes if you have them.
Confirm. Optrix creates a Shipment (status Booked) and a Load (status Planned), links them together, and moves the order to Assigned.

Next steps after dispatch: the new shipment has no charges yet. Open the shipment and enter the freight and total charges; the invoice uses them. Then open the load to assign the driver and vehicle and enter your costs.

Generating the invoice

Once the order has been dispatched, click Generate Invoice. Optrix creates a Draft receivable invoice:

The subtotal is the sum of the total charges of the order's shipments. Cancelled shipments are left out.
The due date is today plus the customer's payment terms (30 days if none are set).
All shipments must use the same currency.
If the order already has an invoice, clicking the button again opens it instead of making a duplicate.

Then add tax and any discount, and mark the invoice Sent. See Invoices.

Status updates itself. You don't need to update the order by hand while the job runs. Shipment updates, carrier and driver updates in the Work Portal, and proof of delivery from the driver app all roll up to the order.

Last updated September 2026 · Something unclear or out of date? Tell us.