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How-to guide

How to create a Order in Salesforce

Orders represent confirmed sales that fulfillment now needs to act on. They're the bridge between the closed-won Opportunity (or Contract) and ERP / fulfillment workflows. Activated Orders are intentionally hard to edit — that's a feature, not a bug.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated Apr 20, 2026

Orders represent confirmed sales that fulfillment now needs to act on. They're the bridge between the closed-won Opportunity (or Contract) and ERP / fulfillment workflows. Activated Orders are intentionally hard to edit — that's a feature, not a bug.

  1. Make sure Orders are enabled

    Setup → Order Settings → Enable Orders. New orgs sometimes ship with this off.

  2. Open the parent Account or Contract

    Orders are typically created from one or the other. Account is the most common entry point; Contract is required if your business uses contract-driven order flows.

  3. Click New Order from the Orders related list

    Or App Launcher → Orders → New if no parent yet.

  4. Fill Account, Contract (optional), Effective Date

    Account is the customer; Contract is the umbrella agreement (if any); Effective Date is when fulfillment begins.

  5. Set Status to Draft

    Draft means editable. Activated locks the Order. Always start in Draft.

  6. Add Order Products

    Order Products related list → Add Products → pick from a Price Book. Quantity, Sales Price, Service Date all live on the Order Product, not the Order.

  7. Activate the Order

    Once everything is correct, change Status to Activated. The Order is now read-only at the header level — only Order Products can be added (or reduction-ordered).

Mandatory fields
Accountrequired

Required. Customer the order is for.

Effective Daterequired

Required. When the order takes effect.

Statusrequired

Required. Defaults to Draft.

Gotchas
  • Activating an Order makes it read-only. To change anything substantive, you must clone or use Reduction Orders — there is no "unactivate" button without admin permissions.
  • Order Products require a Price Book Entry. If the Product isn't in a price book, you can't add it as an Order Product.
  • Orders feature must be enabled at the org level (Setup → Order Settings) before the related list and tab appear. New orgs sometimes have this off.

See the full Order entry

Order includes the definition, worked example, deep dive, related terms, and a quiz.