Orders & production

Everything from a submitted order to a dispatched gown is managed from the studio, across two views: Orders and Schedule.

The order queue

New orders arrive with the status submitted. In Studio → Orders you can:

• Confirm — accept the order. This raises an invoice and releases the gown to the factory queue.
• Amend — adjust an order before it's confirmed.
• Cancel — cancel an order, notifying the stockist.

Each row shows the gown, the stockist, the bride, the value and the current stage. The search box finds an order by bride name, stockist, style name or code, order reference or DOC number — every word you type has to match somewhere, so "smith JA114" finds Sally Smith's JA114.

The order page

Opening an order shows everything about it in one place:

• The spec — every line with size, colour and customisations, the delivery band and estimated date
• Stage timeline — submitted → confirmed → cutting → production → quality check → dispatched, with the date each step happened (a deferred order adds a size confirmed step before cutting)
• Reference images the stockist attached
• The message thread with the stockist, and any amendment request
• Print / Save as PDF — the order document, with prices

DOC number

Every order can carry an optional DOC number — your own reference from a docket, a show order book or your accounts system. Type it on the order page and save: letters and digits only, up to 24 characters (anything else is stripped). It prints on the order document and the factory spec, and the Orders search finds it.

Wedding date

Stockists often key the wrong year. They can't change a committed order, so you correct the wedding date on the order page and save — the bride record follows, the change is recorded in the order history, and the stockist is told in the portal. At-risk flags and the deferred-size cut-off are recalculated from the new date.

Estimated delivery

Portal orders get an estimated delivery date automatically from the delivery band the stockist chose. Orders the studio creates — sample orders from Add samples in particular — may start without one, and the page says Not set until you give it one (the stockist sees "To be confirmed").

Set or change the date on the order page and save. The stockist is told in the portal, the change is recorded in the order history, and if the factory already has the order you're offered Send the updated spec to the factory in the same step. The date also drives the factory's ship-by board and the studio's at-risk flags, so an order with no date sits outside both.

Images for the factory

Under Add images for the factory you can attach sketches, annotated reference photos or fabric shots (JPEG/PNG/PDF, up to 15 MB each). They sit alongside anything the stockist attached, go into the factory spec email and the no-login factory page, and are listed under Attached images on the order. If the factory already has the order, use Email to factory to send the updated spec.

Notes for the factory

Two kinds of note live on an order, and only one reaches the factory:

• Stockist notes — special requests and pattern-change notes the stockist typed. Requests are kept per gown and shown under the gown they belong to, with any notes for the whole order beneath. All of it is flagged review before relaying and is never sent to the factory automatically.
• Production notes to factory — written by you. This is the only note printed on the factory spec.

Amending an order

From the order page, Amend order · customisations & prices covers changes after submission — on a bride order or a sample order:

• Change a price row, or remove a charge
• Add a customisation from your option groups, with its standard charge pre-filled (edit it if you've agreed something different)
• Add an adjustment — a free-text line with any amount, such as a goodwill −£25
• Apply a discount %, and record a reason that's kept on the order

Customisation changes update the spec the factory sees. If the factory already has the order, you're offered Send the updated spec to the factory now. The stockist is notified in-app, any amendment request they'd raised is cleared, and a prices amended entry appears in the order history.

Amendments are refused once an invoice exists for the order (void it first), and once an order is dispatched or cancelled.

Deferred sizing

A stockist can reserve a style for a bride before the size is final — see Placing an order. The order arrives marked Deferred bride order with an expected size and a size-confirmation date. Confirm it as normal so the fabric is committed, but cutting is held until the stockist confirms the final size from their portal; the studio is emailed when they do, and the factory spec is re-sent with the final size.

Reminders go to the stockist automatically from 14 days before their deadline, weekly, and the order page has a Send a reminder button for a manual chase. Final sizes must be confirmed at least 8 weeks before the wedding.

The production schedule

Studio → Schedule lays every live order against its wedding date and sorts by what needs attention first. Each order is scored for risk:

Handing off to the factory

Confirming an order sends your factory a production spec by email — with a no-login link to view, print and acknowledge it — and the gown appears in the factory queue automatically. A manual Email to factory button on the order covers re-sends. The spec is price-masked unless you switch on Show prices on the factory copy (Settings → Factory orders), for a factory that keys the money into its own system to raise its confirmation; it then carries each gown's price, the itemised charges and the order totals.

Every spec names the order's unique Order ID (the JA-2026-00061 reference) and asks the factory to quote it back. If another live order for the same stockist looks like this one — same bride, or the same gowns in the same sizes and colours within 60 days — the spec carries a red possible duplicate warning naming the earlier reference, and the order page shows the same warning so you can cancel one before it is made twice.

Sending a shipment as one spec

A stockist's shipment is often several bride orders at once. Under the default one spec per order setting each goes to the factory separately as you confirm it. Switch to bundle a stockist's orders into one shipment (Settings → Factory orders) and confirmed orders wait instead; under Orders → Send to factory you tick the ones that ship together, give them one DOC number, and the factory receives a single spec: the DOC at the top, every order listed with its own Order ID, and one set of totals. The DOC is written to each order, the history records sent to the factory as one shipment, and the order page shows when the factory last had the spec.

The Send to factory page also works as a safety net on the per-order setting: anything confirmed that never reached the factory (no address set at the time, or a failed send) is listed there.

What happens next depends on your production tracking mode (Studio → Settings). On simple tracking — the default — you move the order yourself from its page: Move to With production, then Mark dispatched, which emails the stockist. On detailed tracking your factory logs in and advances each gown through cutting → with production → quality check → dispatched in its queue, and you can still step an order from its page. Either way every forward move updates the stockist's timeline and notifies them. See Order statuses.

Set the factory's email address (more than one is fine) under Studio → Settings → Factory orders.

Sample dresses & loans

Studio → Samples reports every sample across your stockists, and Add samples lets you log a priced sample order on a boutique's behalf — after a show, say — or record stock they already hold. See Sample dresses. Samples that go out and come back are loans, with their own page under Studio → Loans.

Amendment requests & messages

Retailers can raise amendment requests and messages against an order, so conversations about a gown live with the order itself rather than scattered across email. A stockist can request an amendment or cancellation within 7 days of submitting; after that they contact you. Conversations that aren't about one order live under Studio → Messages — see Notifications & messages.

Related

• Order statuses — every stage explained
• Invoicing — what happens when you confirm
• Sample dresses — priced samples and show deals