Order statuses and lifecycle
Every order status, how an order moves from one to the next, who or what moves it, and what each status means for the price and the invoice.
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Every order in NemiRoute has exactly one status. The status decides what you can do with the order, what the driver sees in the app, and whether an invoice can take it. This article lists all 20 statuses, the moves NemiRoute allows between them, and who makes each move.
The normal flow
A typical order goes Draft (optional) → Pending → Assigned → Driver accepted → En route to pickup → At pickup → Picked up → En route to delivery → At delivery → Delivered → Completed.
The progress bar on the order page groups these into five steps: Order placed, Driver assigned, Picked up, Out for delivery and Delivered, each with the time it happened.
NemiRoute checks every status change against a fixed list of allowed next steps. A change that is not on the list is refused with a message that names the steps that are allowed. Only an Admin or Operations Manager can go around the list with Force a different status… (see Forcing a status below).
Multi-stop jobs and statuses
A job with extra stops uses the same statuses. The order stays Picked up while the driver works the extra pickups and drops, becomes En route to delivery when the last of them is closed, and Delivered after the final drop. A planned return is worked while the order is Delivered, and the order cannot become Completed until it is done or skipped. See Multi-stop jobs explained.
Every status
| Status | What it means | Who or what moves it on | Allowed next statuses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Saved but not submitted. Only the customer is required. Operations can't see it until it is submitted. | You (Confirm order). | Pending, Awaiting approval, Cancelled (a draft is deleted rather than cancelled) |
| Awaiting approval | A portal, API, CSV import or recurring order from a customer whose Approve orders automatically setting is off. | You (Approve order or Decline order). Orders your team creates never wait here. | Pending, Cancelled |
| Pending | Placed and waiting for a driver. | You (Assign driver), the auto-assign rule, or a route. | Assigned, Cancelled, On hold, At depot |
| Assigned | A driver has the order but hasn't accepted it. | The driver accepts or rejects it in the app; you can also Accept order, Transfer to another driver or Unassign driver. | Driver accepted, Rejected, Pending, Cancelled, On hold, At depot |
| Rejected | The driver turned it down, with a reason. | You (assign again or move back to pending). | Pending, Assigned, At depot |
| Driver accepted | The driver accepted the job. This is not the same as an approved order. | The driver starts the pickup run. | En route to pickup, Cancelled, On hold, At depot |
| En route to pickup | The driver is driving to the pickup. | The driver arrives, or reports a failure on the way. | At pickup, Pickup failed, Cancelled, On hold, At depot |
| At pickup | The driver is at the pickup. | The driver completes the pickup (with the proof the rules ask for) or reports a failure. | Picked up, Pickup failed |
| Picked up | The goods are with the driver. | The driver starts the delivery run, or a depot receives the goods. | En route to delivery, At depot |
| At depot | In a depot's care with no driver holding it (received after a collection, a failed delivery, a recall or a drop-off). | You (Redeliver: assign driver, a route, hold, return to sender), or a depot load (Picked up). | Assigned, Picked up, On hold, Return to sender, Returned, Cancelled |
| En route to delivery | The driver is driving to the receiver. | The driver arrives, reports a failure, or is recalled to a depot. | At delivery, Delivery failed, At depot |
| At delivery | The driver is at the delivery address. | The driver completes the delivery (proof, cash on delivery) or reports a failure. | Delivered, Delivery failed |
| Delivered | Handed over to the receiver. A delivery where some packages were refused, damaged or missing shows Delivered (partial). | You (Mark completed), or the system after 24 hours. | Completed |
| Completed | Proof checked and the order closed. Final. | Nobody: no further moves. | — |
| Pickup failed | The pickup didn't happen. Shows the reason and how many attempts are used. | You (Retry pickup, hold, cancel). | Pending, Assigned, Cancelled, On hold |
| Delivery failed | The delivery didn't happen. | You (Retry delivery, Return to sender, hold, receive at a depot, cancel), or a route loading it again. | En route to delivery, Return to sender, Cancelled, On hold, At depot, Picked up |
| Return to sender | On its way back to the sender, or waiting at the depot for its return run. | The driver, or you with Mark returned. | Returned, At depot |
| Returned | The sender has the goods back. Final and separate from Completed: the order was not delivered. | Nobody. | — |
| On hold | Paused by a person or by the system. Nothing moves and the driver no longer sees it. | You (Release hold), which sends it back to where it was held from when that is still allowed. | Back to where it was held from, At depot or Cancelled; Pending or Assigned only if it was held before pickup |
| Cancelled | Closed without delivery. Final. | Nobody. | — |
What the system does on its own
- Auto-assign: when Auto-assign new orders is on (Orders → ⋯ → Dispatch rules…), portal, API, import and recurring orders go straight to the best-fitting driver (Assigned). A recurring order assigned this way sends the customer no "assigned" email. When nobody fits, the order stays Pending.
- Failures: a failure reason can be set up to return the goods to the sender automatically or to put the order on hold. When the last allowed attempt fails, the order is put On hold with the reason "Max attempts reached" so a person decides what happens. A retry is refused once the attempts are used up.
- Quote needed: an order whose lane is outside the zone table is put On hold (when it is placed, or when you approve it) until someone sets its price with Adjust price; only then can the hold be released.
- Credit and prepayment: when a customer is over its credit rule or must prepay, the order can be held until it is approved or paid.
- Closing: a nightly job marks orders that were delivered more than 24 hours ago as Completed ("Closed automatically"). An order with an open planned return stop, or a failed extra stop with no redelivery, is not closed.
- Recurring orders are created ahead of their date (7 days by default) as Pending or Draft, as set under Recurring orders → Settings.
Forcing a status
Change status offers only the allowed next steps; Picked up, Delivered and the failed statuses are not offered there because they need proof, cash on delivery and a reason, so they come from Complete pickup, Complete delivery and Report failure. Force a different status… lets an Admin or Operations Manager (the orders:delete permission) set any status with a required reason. It clears the details of later stages and is logged as a warning. Completed can only be forced from Delivered. An order awaiting approval can't be forced: approve or decline it.
What each status means for billing
| Situation | What an invoice takes |
|---|---|
| Draft | Nothing. The price is recalculated every time the order changes. |
| Submitted (Pending onwards) | Nothing yet. The price is locked when the order is submitted; changing the service, addresses or packages later asks you to confirm the new price. |
| Delivered or Completed | The order's price plus its charges after pickup or delivery. A delivered order is billed even at $0.00. Cash on delivery orders too: the cash collected is the customer's goods money, credited to their account. |
| Returned | Only the charges (for example a return-to-sender fee); not the price. |
| Cancelled | Only the charges, such as a cancellation fee the service charges at that stage. |
| Any other status | Nothing: the order is still open. |
Charges come from the service's charge rules (waiting time, failed attempt, redelivery, cancellation, return to sender, COD handling) or are added by hand with Add charge. They are listed on the order under Charges after pickup or delivery.
Once an order is on an invoice it shows the Invoiced badge and its money is locked: the price, customer, payment method and COD amount can't change until the invoice is deleted (draft) or voided. Collected cash on delivery locks the same fields. The orders list filter More filters → Any billing → Unbilled (delivered, not invoiced) shows closed orders with something to bill and no invoice yet.
Related
Related articles
- Page guideOrder detailEvery part of an order's page: header badges and buttons, every action in the ⋯ menu with who can use it and what it changes, the status banner, and the General, Packages, Price breakdown, Attachments and History tabs.
- How-toWork on an orderAssign a driver, change the status, edit the order, add notes and files, share tracking, print documents, cancel or complete it.
- How-toHandle a failed deliveryDecide what happens after a failed pickup or delivery: schedule a new attempt and tell the recipient, return the package to the sender, or put the order on hold.
- How-toFind and manage ordersFilter and search the orders list, save views, use the board, and act on many orders at once: assign, print labels, add to a route.
- How-toFind delivered orders that are not invoicedSee which customers have delivered orders that are not on an invoice yet, and bill them in a few clicks.
- How-toCreate and send invoicesBill a customer's delivered orders plus any fees or discounts, check the draft, send or finalize it, print it and chase payment.
- ConceptMulti-stop jobs explainedHow a job with extra pickups, drops and a return works from booking to completion: stop types, the order they are worked in, price, distance, proof, failures and who sees what.
- TroubleshootingOrder and dispatch error messagesWhat the red messages mean when you save an order, work a stop, change a status or run a route, and how to fix each one.
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