Configure Order Edit Rules in AfterShip Order Edits

AfterShip Order Edits is currently in Beta and available to invited AfterShip merchants only.

Overview

Order edits rules help you control how Order Edits work behind the scenes. You can decide how long shoppers can edit their orders, prevent certain orders or products from being edited, manage fulfillment and payment processing during the editing window, and configure how refunds, taxes, and email notifications are handled.

This article explains the available order edit rules and how to configure them for your store.

You can also customize Shopper Actions to control what they see and edit. Read more>

How to configure Order Edit Rules

Open AfterShip Order Edits.
Go to the Rules tab.

Here you will find all settings that control how Order Edits behaves for shoppers and how order changes are processed behind the scenes.

1. Editing time window

The editing time window is the period during which shoppers can make changes to their orders after checkout. You can configure the editing window in minutes, hours, or days.

Once the editing window closes, the order can no longer be edited.

Best practice: The editing window should be shorter than the time it takes your ERP, WMS, or other fulfillment systems to import orders from Shopify. This helps ensure shoppers finish making order changes before downstream systems (ERP, WMS, or other fulfillment systems) begin processing the order.

For Example, if your ERP imports Shopify orders 15 minutes after checkout, you should consider setting the editing window to 10 minutes. This gives shoppers time to make changes before the order is processed by downstream systems.

2. Order holds

Order holds help prevent fulfillment or payment systems from processing orders during the editing window.

Before you enable the order hold, confirm how your ERP, WMS, or other fulfillment system imports Shopify orders. Most systems use either:

- Shopify fulfillment status
- Shopify finanical status

In most cases, you’ll need to enable only one. Enable the order hold type that matches your setup. Choosing the wrong one may not prevent your downstream system from processing orders mid-edit.

Shopify fulfillment hold

Enable ‘Shopify fulfillment hold’ if downstream systems import Shopify orders based on fulfillment status. The hold remains active during the editing window and is automatically released when the window closes.

Auto-payment capture

Enable ‘Auto-payment capture’ hold if downstream systems import Shopify orders based on payment status. Payment remains authorised during the editing window and is automatically captured once the window closes.

For more understanding of how Order hold works, refer to the article: Understanding order holds>.

3. Prevent Order edits

By default, all orders can be edited during the editing window. With Prevent editing rules, you can create exclusion rules to prevent specific orders or products from being edited.

Exclude orders by order tag: Use this rule to prevent orders with specific Shopify order tags from being edited. For example, final sales orders.
Exclude products by product tag: Prevent products with specific product tags from being edited or removed. This can be useful for personalized items and limited-edition products. For example, free gifts, bundle products

4. Refunds

Auto refund is enabled by default.

When a shopper edits an order and the updated order total is lower than the original amount, AfterShip automatically initiates the refund process in Shopify. This removes the need to manually issue refunds for eligible order changes.

5. Tax recalculations

Changing a shipping address may affect tax calculations if the new address belongs to a different tax region. In this case, you can choose how the tax is calculated for the new shipping address.

Keep original tax (Enabled by default)

By default, Shopify keeps the original tax amount even if the updated shipping address has a different tax rate.

Recalculate tax

When enabled, shoppers complete a new checkout at the updated tax rate. After the payment is complete, the original order is cancelled, and the payment is refunded. A new order is created using the updated tax calculation.

6. Email engagement

Order Edits uses Shopify’s native email notification system to communicate the order changes to shoppers. When an order edit event occurs, AfterShip triggers the corresponding Shopify email notification template. This ensures shoppers receive notifications that match the look and feel of other Shopify order emails.

By default, Order cancelled and Order refund notifications are enabled. You can enable additional notifications for other order edit events relevant to your store.

You can enable notifications for the following events:

Order refund(enabled by default)– Sent when an order edit results in a refund.
Order cancelled(enabled by default)– Triggered when a shopper cancels an order during the editing window.
Order edited – Sent as a confirmation that an order edit is completed. Includes a payment link if additional payment is required.
Order reverted – Sent when unpaid added items are removed after the editing window closes.

Click View template to see what the email notification would look like to shoppers.

Key takeaways

With Order edits rules, define how long shoppers can edit their orders by setting an editing time window.
Use Order holds to prevent orders from being processed while shoppers are still making changes.
You can exclude specific orders or products from editing using order or product tags.
AfterShip automatically handles refunds when order edits reduce the order total.
Configure how tax is handled when shoppers update shipping addresses across tax regions.
Choose which order edit events trigger shopper email notifications.

Additional resources

If you encounter issues while configuring the Order edits rules, contact the AfterShip Support team for help!

Updated on: 11/06/2026