---
title: "When does an order become completed?"
description: "When an order shows completed, and why a part-delivered order is correctly still in progress."
url: "https://support.pr-4.orbit.do/en/faq/when-does-an-order-become-completed"
locale: "en"
lastReviewed: "2026-09-28"
---

# When does an order become completed?

When an order shows completed, and why a part-delivered order is correctly still in progress.

> **Note:** An `Order` shows `Completed` only once every one of its shipments that counts has been delivered. While any shipment is still in transit, the order is correctly still in progress — it hasn't stalled.

You don't set an `Order`'s status by hand. Orbit works it out from the `Shipments` the order contains, and the order reaches `Completed` only when every one of those shipments has been delivered.

Until then the order stays `Confirmed` — or `Waiting for Tour Review` while a tour is being reviewed. A part-delivered order, with one shipment delivered and another still on the road, is not stuck: it is simply still in progress, and it will complete when the last shipment arrives.

Cancelled or failed shipments don't hold an order back. Orbit leaves them out when deciding whether the order is done, so an order can still reach `Completed` even if one of its shipments was cancelled along the way — as long as all the remaining shipments were delivered.

There is one exception, and it is the other way an order can end: as undeliverable. Once every one of its shipments has ended and at least one of them has no cargo left to move, because the goods on it were written off, the order reads as undeliverable instead of `Completed`. Orbit derives this from the shipments like any other order status, so undoing the write-off reopens the order. The [Writing Off Goods That Cannot Be Delivered](https://support.pr-4.orbit.do/en/multi-leg-logistics/writing-off-goods-that-cannot-be-delivered) article covers how a write-off is recorded.

This is the path for an order that has shipments. A confirmed order that never gets one, such as a box rental, a box sale or a recycling brokerage, has nothing to derive a completed status from, so Orbit does not complete it automatically. Use Complete Order instead, on the order's detail page or its context menu in the orders list: confirming it is final and hands the order to accounting.

## Example

A coordinator at ACME Ltd books an `Order` with two `Shipments` — one to Lisbon, one to Rome. The Lisbon delivery finishes first, but the order stays `Confirmed` because Rome is still moving. Once the Rome shipment is delivered, the order turns to `Completed`. Had the Rome shipment been cancelled instead, the order would still have completed on the strength of the Lisbon delivery alone.