Order Lifecycle

Every order on your marketplace follows the same lifecycle, whether it’s a pizza for delivery, a pharmacy pickup, or a scheduled supermarket run. Understanding the lifecycle makes everything else — live order management, dispatch, refunds, reports — easier to reason about.

The happy path

NEW → ACCEPTED → PROCESSING → READY → Out for delivery / Picked up → Completed

Status	What it means	Who moves it forward — and how
NEW	Customer has checked out and (for online payments) paid. The order is waiting for the merchant.	Merchant taps Accept (or Reject)
ACCEPTED	The merchant has confirmed they’ll fulfill the order, typically with an estimated preparation time.	Merchant taps Start Process
PROCESSING	The order is being prepared — cooking, picking, packing.	Merchant taps Mark Ready
READY	The order is packed and waiting for handover — to a driver, or to the customer for pickup.	Merchant — handover, then Complete Order
Out for delivery	A driver has collected the order and is on the way to the customer. (Delivery orders only.)	Driver
Picked up	The customer has collected the order at the outlet. (Pickup orders only.)	Merchant / customer handover
Completed	The order has been delivered or handed over. Done.	Driver or merchant

Dine-in orders follow the same merchant-side flow (ACCEPTED → PROCESSING → READY → served/completed) without the delivery leg.

When things don’t go to plan

Two terminal statuses exist outside the happy path:

Cancelled — the order was cancelled by the customer, the merchant, or your team before completion. Cancellation rules, fees, and refunds are configurable — see Cancellations.
Failed — the order could not be completed (for example, a payment that never finalized). Failed orders are visible in admin reporting so nothing disappears silently.

Refunds for cancelled or edited orders route back to the original payment method or to the customer’s wallet, depending on your configuration — see Editing & refunds and Payments overview.

Who sees what

The customer

Sees their order’s live status from the moment it’s placed, with updates as it progresses.
Receives notifications at the key transitions — accepted, ready (for pickup), out for delivery, completed — plus any cancellation.
For delivery orders, can track the driver’s progress live on the map once the order is out for delivery.

The merchant (partner app)

New orders arrive under NEW in Partner app → Orders → Live Orders with sound and notification, awaiting Accept or Reject.
The merchant drives the order through PROCESSING and READY, and requests or receives a driver for delivery orders.
Scheduled orders appear in the upcoming orders view ahead of their fulfillment time. See Live orders.

The dispatcher and operator

The dispatcher panel shows active orders and driver positions on a live map, with the ability to assign or reassign drivers.
The admin panel shows every order across the marketplace, with full detail and history, and feeds the reports suite.

The driver

Receives an assignment (manually from a dispatcher, automatically via auto-dispatch, or through a delivery network).
Sees pickup and drop-off details, and updates progress as they collect and deliver — which is what powers the customer’s live tracking.

Notifications along the way

Status transitions trigger notifications automatically:

Customers get push notifications (and depending on your configuration, SMS or email) at key milestones.
Merchants are alerted to new and scheduled orders in the partner app.
Drivers are notified of assignments and changes.

Notification channels and providers are configured per marketplace — see Communications.

Timing and scheduling

ASAP orders enter the merchant’s live orders immediately on placement.
Scheduled orders are placed in advance and surface to the merchant at the right time before fulfillment — see Scheduled orders.
Merchants set or adjust preparation time when accepting, which feeds customer expectations and dispatch timing.

Edits during the lifecycle

Depending on the features you enable, an order can change after placement:

Order editing — merchants (with permission) can adjust items on an active order, with payment collection or refunds handled for the difference. You control which statuses allow edits and for how long. See Editing & refunds.
Cancellation — allowed statuses, who can cancel, fees, and refund behavior are all configurable. See Cancellations.

Both features are off-by-default toggles with role-based permissions, so you decide exactly how much flexibility your marketplace offers.

The lifecycle in reports

Completed, cancelled, and failed orders all flow into reporting — order lists, summaries, and per-outlet breakdowns — so the lifecycle you see operationally matches what you analyze later. Cancellations and edits get their own dedicated report sets under Dashboard → Reports (for example /reports/cancellation-summary and /reports/edit-order-list). See Reports.