Orders

“Orders” is where orders from your connected stores arrive, and it is where most days start. It is the first entry of “Orders & shipping”, and it opens on “Needs attention”: the orders waiting for you. When the app has nothing else to go on, it opens “Control Tower” instead.

Needs attention

“Needs attention” is the first tab. It lists the open orders that wait for you, and its count is how many there are. An order with two reasons is counted once.

• “Addresses to review”: the address check holds the order, because its address needs review or is invalid. Only while address checks are on. See Address checks.
• “Automatic labels on hold”: a rule held the order’s label on purpose. When the rule held it for its address, the order is listed under the address while the check holds it, and here once it does not. See Automation rules.
• “Labels failed or unconfirmed”: a rule tried to buy the label and could not, or the carrier never confirmed the purchase. A plan that has lapsed is not listed here: that is one problem of the account, not one of each order.
• “Connection problems”: a store to reconnect, a carrier or ERP in error, a PrintNode key refused, a printer that was offline at its last print, or a webhook that fails. These are not orders, so they have a count of their own, which the tab leaves out. Each says what is wrong, and “Fix in Settings” opens the Settings section that fixes it. See Stores in Settings.

Pick a reason above the list to see only those orders; “All reasons” shows every one. Each row still says why it is there: the address check beside the destination, and what the rule did beside the label. Once the cause is dealt with (the address confirmed, the label bought, the order shipped or cancelled), the order leaves the list.

When nothing waits for you, no order and no connection problem you can fix, the tab says “Nothing needs you right now” where the list would be, with “Go to open orders”. It says so only once both are known, and not while a filter or a date range narrows the list.

A label you bought yourself, one order at a time or in bulk, whose outcome the carrier never confirmed is not listed here. The order itself says so, as described under buying a label below.

If the server cannot say which orders need attention, the tab is not shown and “Orders” opens on “Open”, as it did before September 2026. If it cannot say which connections are broken, the “Connection problems” chip is not shown.

A search for a word from the command palette lands on “Open”, and an order it finds opens on that order’s own stage. The first label row of the setup checklist lands on “Open”.

Importing from your stores

New orders arrive from your connected stores on their own. To pull a store’s whole order history in now, open “Import” and choose the platform, or “All stores” when more than one platform is connected.

While it runs, the page shows each platform’s logo syncing into the Next Horizon mark, and says for each store where it stands. The import runs in the background, so you can keep working, and the list refreshes as each store’s orders arrive. Pressing import again while a store is still importing does not start a second one.

When every store has answered, the panel says how many new orders came in. A store that could not import says why. If it needs reconnecting, “Reconnect store” takes you to where that is done. See Connect a store. “View orders” takes you down to the list, on “Open”, where the new orders are.

Stages

Orders are grouped by stage: open, labels, shipped, delivered and cancelled. The stage you are on is part of the address, so a link to the open pile stays a link to the open pile. “Needs attention” is part of the address the same way, but it is not a stage: its orders are open ones, and are in “Open” too.

Filters

Beyond the stage, you can filter by “Payment status”, “Fulfillment status” and “Channel”, and search within what you are looking at.

Payment values are “Paid”, “Pending”, “Authorized”, “Partial refund”, “Refunded” and “Voided”. Fulfillment values are “Unfulfilled”, “Partial”, “Fulfilled”, “Restocked” and “Cancelled”.

The “Address” filter shows the orders whose address check says “Needs review” (or “Invalid”), “Corrected” or “Not checked”.

“Reset filters” clears them. The summary line tells you how many of the total you are looking at, so a filter that has hidden everything is obvious rather than looking like an empty account.

Buying a label

Creating a shipping label runs as a short sequence of steps from an order. It uses a carrier account you have connected, so set that up first. See Connect a carrier account.

Read this part carefully, because it concerns money and duplicates.

If a label for the order is still being bought, or an attempt stopped part way through, the app says so and offers “Check again”, which re-reads the order to see whether a label was created. A purchase that stopped part way is cleared by support once someone has checked with the carrier. If the carrier never answered, no button is offered: support resolves it, and until then the order cannot be bought again.

There is also a case where the carrier never answers at all, so the app genuinely cannot tell whether a label was created. It says exactly that, alerts support, and turns the button off for the same reason. Check with the carrier before doing anything else.

These are not error messages to click past. They exist because buying two labels costs you twice and confuses the shipment.

Unfinished orders

The create order form (“Create Order” at the top of the page) saves what you type as a draft while you work, a couple of seconds after each change and again when you leave the form, whether you press Cancel, go back or switch page. Nothing is saved until you have entered something yourself: a sender address filled in for you does not count.

When drafts exist, a Drafts button appears beside “Create Order”, with how many there are. It opens “Unfinished orders”, which lists each draft by recipient (or “Untitled draft”), destination and when it was last changed.

• “Resume” reopens the form where you left it. Rates are not kept in a draft, because they go stale: a draft left on the rates or pickup-point step reopens on the order details, and pressing Next fetches fresh rates. A draft left on the final review keeps its chosen service only if it was changed within the last hour; older ones reopen on the details too.
• The bin (“Delete draft”) removes a draft.

Drafts belong to the account, not to the person who started them, so anyone on the account can finish one, on any device. They are not orders: they stay out of the stages and their counts. Buying the label deletes the draft. The purchase is tied to the draft, so the same draft finished in a second tab, or reopened after an edit, is the same purchase, not a second label. The account keeps a limited number of recent drafts; when a new one is saved past that number, the oldest go.

A hard reload of the page can lose the last couple of seconds of typing.

Address checks

Every new order’s delivery address is checked when it arrives, and its status shows beside the destination country: “Valid”, “Corrected”, “Needs review”, “Invalid”, “Not checked”, “Confirmed” or “Outdated”. Press it, when there is something to review, to open “Review address”, where you accept the suggestion, keep the original or edit the address. An order’s details show its “Address check” section, and a warning above “Create label” when the address needs review. That warning never blocks the button (only an address missing something every label needs does, as it always has), and bulk runs are not blocked either. See Address checks.

Editing the delivery address

In an order’s details, “Edit” beside “Shipping details” opens “Edit the delivery address” right there, across the details. It is also in “Review address” as “Edit address”, which is the main button when the address holds an automatic label and there is no suggestion to accept (a missing street, for example). When an address is too incomplete for any label, the warning above “Create label” offers “Edit address” too.

The form is laid out the way the destination country writes an address, and changes with the country you choose: in France the postcode comes before the town, in the United Kingdom after it, and in the United States the ZIP code follows the state, which is picked from a list. The labels follow the country (postcode, ZIP code, Eircode; state, county, department) and every field a label needs is marked. For France and the United Kingdom, “Find address” above the first line fills the street, town and postcode from a search (in France, from the Base Adresse Nationale, the French national address database).

When the order’s address is on hold, the form opens with what the last check found: its verdict, the reasons, the suggestion one click away, and the fields it names marked (for example the town, when it does not match the postcode). A field’s mark goes as soon as you change it.

Each field is checked as you leave it, then as you type: a missing field, a postcode that does not look like the country’s (with an example), a phone number with letters in it, a value too long for the order. Only the fields you change can stop a save: a field the store sent in a form we would refuse (a phone number with a note in it, say) stays marked, as advice, but never stops you fixing another one. Once everything you changed looks right and you pause, the address check runs on what you typed and shows its verdict before you save, with any suggestion one click away. It never stops you saving.

“Save address” (or Enter) saves only what you changed, and checks the address again straight away:

• When the new address passes and a label rule was waiting for it, the label is bought on its own, once, and the order moves on a few seconds later.
• When the address still needs attention, the form stays open with what the check found. Press “Use the suggestion” when there is one (it fills the fields and saves them, so the address is checked again), fix it further, or press “Use this address anyway” to ship it as it is.
• Otherwise the form closes and says what the check found. “Undo” puts the previous address back for a few seconds, unless a label is already being bought.

“Cancel” (or Escape) closes the form without saving; in the review dialog, “Back” returns to the review. Nothing you typed is lost when saving fails: the problem shows under its field, or above the buttons with “Try again”.

An order that has a label keeps its address: “Edit” is replaced by a line saying so and what to do instead (cancel that label with the carrier, then make a new one), with “Create a new label”, which opens the create order form with the order’s recipient filled in. The same goes while a label is being bought for it (try again a moment later), and for an order whose earlier label purchase was never confirmed: a label may already exist, so “Edit” is not offered until that purchase is settled. Check with the carrier first, and contact support if the parcel must go elsewhere. Editing an order from a store changes the address in Horizon, which the label uses; the store keeps its own copy, and if the store sends the order again, its address is used again.

Creating and printing labels in bulk

Tick the orders you want to ship and use the create-and-print action in the bar above the list. Orders that already have a label are printed as they are. For the rest, a dialog says how many labels will be bought and that each is charged exactly like a label you create by hand. “Create & print” buys them and then prints everything you ticked as one file. “Print existing only” prints what already exists and buys nothing.

The labels are bought one order at a time in the background, and the page shows how far it has got. You can close the dialog and keep working. When it finishes, a summary says how many labels were created, which orders already had one, and which failed and why. A failure on one order never stops the others. An order whose label cannot be fetched for printing is left out and named; one case is a carrier that gave an unsecured link to a label that is not available over a secure connection. Horizon does not download that label: download it from the carrier’s website.

Pressing the action again for the same selection is safe. It picks up the same attempt instead of starting a second one, so no order is ever bought twice. An order whose last purchase the carrier never confirmed is left out and named in the dialog: check with the carrier first, then deal with it from the order itself. So is an order whose customer chose a pickup point the store did not name: create its label in the create order form, where you choose the point. See Checkout methods.

Packing slips, pick lists and customs invoices

Tick orders and open “Documents” in the bar above the list to print “Packing slips”, a “Pick list” or “Customs invoices” for them. They come as one A4 file of their own, never inside the labels file: labels usually go to a label printer, these to an ordinary one. They print in the same order as the labels, so the two piles match.

• A packing slip has your company and sender address, the order and its date, the delivery address, each item with its SKU and quantity, and the order note. When you show product passports on packing slips, each item’s passport QR code prints on the slip once the order has a label. See Digital Product Passports.
• The pick list adds up each SKU across the ticked orders, with the total quantity and how many orders need it, in the order you walk the warehouse: by stock location and bin where your inventory records one. A checklist of the orders follows, to tick each one off as it is packed.
• A customs invoice is printed only for a parcel that leaves your customs territory, judged from the address the parcel ships from. France to Germany needs none, since the EU is one customs union; London to Paris does, and so do Jersey, Guernsey, the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments. Northern Ireland follows the EU’s rules for goods: nothing is needed between it and the EU, or from it to Great Britain, but a parcel from Great Britain into Northern Ireland gets one. The invoice lists each item with its HS code and country of origin when your product catalogue has them, the values in the order’s currency, shipping, the total weight and the Incoterm (DAP, or DDP when the order collected duties at checkout), and ends with a declaration to sign. You print it and attach it to the parcel yourself: nothing is sent to customs. An order that needs none is named in the result instead.

In the create-and-print dialog, “After the labels, also print” adds packing slips, a pick list or customs invoices to the run, and the choice is remembered on this device. Once the labels have printed, “Print documents” prints them as a second job. It is a separate press on purpose: a browser does not open two print dialogs one after the other on its own, and the second one is where you choose the other printer.

In an order’s details, “Packing slip” downloads that order’s packing slip, and “Customs invoice” its customs invoice when the parcel needs one.

Pickups

A UPS shipment can be collected from your address instead of dropped off. On a shipment waiting for a pickup, open the shipment’s Manage menu and choose “Schedule Pickup”. Pickups are offered for UPS only.

In “Schedule a Pickup”, choose a weekday and a “Collection window”: “All day”, “Morning”, “Afternoon” or “Custom”, with “Ready from” and “Collect by”. The driver comes at any time in the window, and a wider window is more likely to be accepted. Days UPS does not collect at that address (weekends, public holidays) are refused, and so is a window that is already over. “Add instructions for the driver” takes where to collect, a note and, if the sender address has none, the phone number UPS needs.

Under “Parcels collected”, tick the other shipments waiting at the same address on the same carrier account: one pickup collects them all, for one price. The dialog shows the price before you book. A pickup is paid from your wallet like a label, or billed by UPS to your own account when you ship on it, in which case Horizon charges nothing.

If a pickup is already booked at that address, the dialog offers “Add to this pickup”, at no extra charge, or “Book a separate pickup”, which is booked and charged on its own. A heavy parcel that UPS must be told about, or more parcels than the booked pickup can take, needs a separate pickup.

Once booked, the shipment shows “Pickup Scheduled” and the confirmation gives the “Pickup number”. If the carrier never answers, the dialog says so and asks you not to book again until you have checked the shipment’s status: no pickup is ever booked twice by pressing again.

To cancel, choose “Cancel Pickup” in the same menu, then confirm in “Cancel this pickup?” (“Keep pickup” leaves it as it is). Cancelling a pickup that collects several shipments cancels it for all of them, and a pickup paid from your wallet is refunded there. A pickup can no longer be cancelled once UPS reports that the driver has collected the parcels, or once its window is over. If the driver did not come, “Book a new pickup” books and charges a new one; UPS bills the missed one, so ask UPS about it.

A shipment with a pickup booked cannot be cancelled until the pickup is cancelled.

Labels bought by a rule

An automation rule can buy an order’s label as soon as the order arrives. See Automation rules. Such a label carries a small “Auto” marker, so you can tell it apart from one you bought yourself.

When a rule looked at an order and did not buy, the row says so. “Auto-label failed” gives the reason, and when the reason is a missing default it links straight to the setting to fix. “Auto-label skipped” means the rule chose not to buy, for example because the order was cancelled, not yet paid or already fulfilled. In both cases you can create the label by hand or in bulk once the cause is fixed.

When a rule chose the carrier by price or speed, the order’s shipping label section says which carrier and service it picked and at what price, and for the fastest pick how many days it takes. If a rule below it replaced the pick, or no carrier could be picked, it says that too, and that your shipping settings are used. Before the label is bought, the carrier and service the rules set are shown beside “Create label”, since that is what it buys.

“Outcome unknown. Support is resolving this.” is the same situation described under buying a label: the carrier never answered, so nobody can say whether a label exists. Another attempt could buy a second label, so the order cannot be bought again until support has settled it. Check the carrier for a label on this order in the meantime.

Passports from an order

Where an order line has a passport, the row offers a way to view it. See Digital Product Passports.

What happens next

Once labelled and shipped, an order’s life continues in Track a shipment. A return afterwards appears in Returns.