Managing partial payments in Shopify

Payment Options in Essential Preorder

You can choose between two payment options for preorders:

1️⃣ Full Payment

Best for: standard preorders with immediate payment

• Customers pay 100% of the order amount at checkout
• Order is marked as Paid in Shopify
• ✅ Shopify Payments is NOT required

2️⃣ Partial Payment (Deposit)

Best for: high-value items or long production times

• Customers pay a downpayment at checkout
• Remaining balance is collected manually in Shopify admin

You can choose how much to collect upfront (a percentage or a fixed amount) and set a date to collect the remaining balance later.

Here is what customer will see on product page:

Customer see on checkout page:

After customers check out (they paid a downpayment), here is what you see on orders:

• Order is marked as Partially Paid

You can then collect remaining balance manually in Shopify admin:

Key settings & notes

• Downpayment can be set to 0 (reserve now, pay later)
• You can set different deposit amounts by creating multiple campaigns
• ✅ Shopify Payments is REQUIRED
• ⚠️ Do NOT use Shopify’s bulk “Capture payment”
  • This does not charge customers
  • It only marks orders as paid (known Shopify issue)

Orders & Payment Status in Shopify

How orders appear in the Shopify dashboard

🔔 Important

• You must collect the remaining balance manually from the order detail page
• This can be done on the due date or anytime before/after

Fulfillment Best Practices (Deposits Only)

Shopify does not block fulfillment for unpaid balances. We recommend:

• Checking payment status before fulfilling
• Adding order tags, such as:
  • Deposit Paid
  • Balance Due

• Holding fulfillment until the order is fully paid, if required

Refunds & Cancellations

Refunds for partial payments

• You can refund:
  • Only the deposit
  • Or the full collected amount
• Shopify allows you to cancel any remaining unpaid balance

Non-refundable deposits

• Shopify does not enforce non-refundable deposits
• If needed, clearly state this in:
  • Product descriptions
  • Preorder terms
  • Store policies

Order cancellations

• Customers can cancel preorder items before fulfillment
• This helps maintain transparency and trust

Reporting & Tracking

Track payment status

Use Shopify’s Orders dashboard filters:

• Partially Paid → deposit collected, balance pending
• Paid → full amount collected

Adding order tags can make tracking easier.

Reporting on partial payments

Shopify doesn’t offer a dedicated partial payment report, but you can:

• Export orders to CSV and filter by payment status
• Use Shopify Analytics to track preorder revenue and trends

Summary

• Full payment = simple, immediate charge
• Partial payment = flexible, manual balance collection
• Shopify Payments is required for deposits
• Manual tracking is essential for fulfilment and follow-ups

Related

Payment & App Compatibility with Preorder (using Selling Plan) · Automatically hold Preorder orders (Alternative to REZ Shippings) · Automatically Release Held Preorder Orders