Order Product
An Order Product in Salesforce (OrderItem in the API) is a standard child object that represents a single line item on an Order - one Product, one quantity, one price.
Definition
An Order Product in Salesforce (OrderItem in the API) is a standard child object that represents a single line item on an Order - one Product, one quantity, one price. Each Order Product has a parent Order through the OrderId field, a reference to the Product through PricebookEntryId, and a copy of pricing details at the moment the line was created: Quantity, UnitPrice, ListPrice (snapshot from the Price Book Entry), TotalPrice (calculated), and ServiceDate. Order Products are typically created in one of three ways: automatically when a closed-won Opportunity is converted to an Order (using Salesforce's built-in "Create Order from Opportunity" action), manually added by a sales-ops user as part of order entry, or programmatically through Apex or an integration. Like Quote Line Items and Opportunity Line Items, Order Products snapshot pricing at insert time - subsequent changes to the underlying Price Book Entry do not propagate.
In plain English
“An Order Product is one row on a Salesforce Order - like one item on a receipt. If a customer orders three different products, the Order has one Order Product per product, each capturing what was bought, how many, and at what price. Together they make up the full Order.”
Worked example
A B2B sales rep closes a deal with Acme Corp for two annual subscriptions: 50 seats of Pro Plan at $99 each and 10 seats of Premium Add-On at $30 each. Once the Opportunity is marked Closed Won, the rep clicks "Create Order from Opportunity." Salesforce creates a new Order linked to the Account and copies each Opportunity Line Item into a corresponding Order Product. The Order now has two Order Product rows: one for Pro Plan (Quantity 50, UnitPrice $99, TotalPrice $4,950) and one for Premium Add-On (Quantity 10, UnitPrice $30, TotalPrice $300). The Order's grand total is $5,250. The fulfillment team works directly off these Order Products - provisioning seats, sending welcome emails, and triggering downstream invoicing.
Why Order Product matters
Order Products are governed by the Order's lifecycle. Once an Order is Activated (Status = 'Activated'), most fields on its Order Products become locked - Quantity and UnitPrice cannot be changed, and lines cannot be added or removed. To revise an activated Order, admins typically clone it as a Reduction Order (Order with Type = 'Reduction Order') referencing the original and recording the negative deltas. This locking behavior protects the integrity of fulfillment and revenue-recognition workflows that depend on Order data.
Order Products always reference a Price Book Entry, not a Product directly. This means the parent Order's Pricebook2Id determines which Price Books an Order Product can come from - and once an Order has Order Products, its Price Book cannot be changed without removing them all first. In multi-currency orgs, the Order Product's currency must match the parent Order's currency, which can cause silent failures when copying line items across orgs or reconciling pipeline-to-revenue across currencies.
The relationship between Opportunity Line Items and Order Products is logical, not enforced by referential integrity. The 'Create Order from Opportunity' action copies values across, but there is no foreign key linking the resulting Order Product back to its source Opportunity Line Item - that lineage typically gets stored in a custom field if needed for downstream reporting (e.g., 'which Opportunity did this revenue come from'). Salesforce CPQ and Revenue Cloud add explicit lineage objects to fix this gap for advanced configure-price-quote-bill flows.
How to create Order Product
Order Products are the line-item details on an Order — what was actually shipped or delivered, in what quantity, at what price. They're the link from "Customer agreed to buy" (Opportunity / Quote) to "Fulfillment knows what to ship" (Order Products).
- Open the parent Order
Add products from the Order Products related list. The Order needs an Account and a Price Book first.
- Confirm the Order has a Price Book
If not, set Price Book on the Order header. Without one, the Add Products picker is empty.
- Open Order Products related list → Add Products
Multi-select picker filtered by the Order's Price Book.
- Set Quantity, Unit Price, Service Date
Unit Price defaults to List Price. Service Date is when fulfillment happens (drives revenue recognition reporting).
- (Optional) set Description and Original Order Product
Original Order Product links a Reduction Order Product back to its parent — used when reducing an activated order.
- Save
Order Product is created. Order header amounts recalculate from line items.
Required by association — line items don't exist outside an Order.
Required. Must be in the Order's Price Book.
Required.
Required.
- An Order without a Price Book can't have products. Set Price Book on the Order header first — common stumble for admins coming from non-Order workflows.
- Activated Orders are read-only at the header level, but Order Products can still be added (with Order Settings → Allow Order Products to Be Added to Activated Orders). Reduction Orders are how you subtract from an activated order.
- Service Date drives revenue recognition reports if your finance team uses them. Default is the Order Effective Date — adjust per line if products ship at different times.
How organizations use Order Product
Converts every Closed-Won Opportunity into an Order with one Order Product per subscription line. The fulfillment team uses Order Products as the source of truth for provisioning user seats and starting subscription clocks, with ServiceDate driving renewal calendar logic.
Maintains Orders with a mix of one-time hardware Order Products and recurring service contracts as separate line items. Activation locks each Order Product's price, and any post-activation changes (returns, swaps) are captured as Reduction Orders so historical revenue stays auditable.
Generates Orders from incoming customer purchase orders, with each line of the PO becoming an Order Product. Downstream processes check inventory availability per Order Product, allocate stock, and ship - closing the loop between Salesforce-tracked sales and ERP-tracked fulfillment.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Order Product.
- OrderItem in Object Reference for the Salesforce PlatformSalesforce Developer Documentation
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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