Order changes and cancellations after customer approval

Why a change after approval is a special case

As long as the customer has not approved, an order change is routine: the designer adjusts, publishes a new version, the customer decides. After approval it is different. The workshop may already have ordered the garments, digitized the embroidery or set up the machine. Above all, the approval covers a precise artwork, quantity and set of instructions: if any of the three changes, the approval no longer covers what you are about to make.

The dangerous reflex is to apply the change silently, “since it is the same order”. The opposite reflex, refusing everything, loses sales. Between the two sits a simple method: make the change visible, decide, and keep the record.

Three situations, three answers

1. The quantity changes

Ten more polos in size L do not change the artwork. They do change the production time, sometimes the garment stock, and the quantity that appeared on the proof. Decide explicitly to apply the new quantity to the job, and check that the due date still holds. If the quantity drops after production has started, the question becomes commercial: who pays for the pieces already made.

2. The product or the personalisation changes

Another colour, another emblem size, a changed text: the approved artwork no longer matches. It needs a new version and a new approval, even if the customer says “it is the same”. This is not distrust, it is the only way to have, later, an approved file that looks like what was made.

3. The order is cancelled

Before the start, cancellation is simple: the job stops, the links sent to the customer stop working, the file stays readable. During production it is an exception for a human to handle: finish or stop, invoice or not, and write the decision down. What must not happen is a job vanishing from a list without anyone knowing why.

The method in four steps

1. Detect. Compare the current order with what it was at the time of approval: lines, quantities, variants, personalisation options. A shipping address that changes has nothing to do with production.
2. Show. The difference must appear on the file, where the team works, not in a lost notification. Until it is handled, nobody should be able to start or continue production on false premises.
3. Decide. Apply the change (and republish a proof if the rendering changes) or dismiss it and tell the customer why. The decision is made by someone who has seen the file, not by an automation.
4. Record. Who decided what, when, and on which version. In a dispute over a custom order, this record is what counts, not the last email.

Checklist

• The quantity produced is the current order quantity, and it appeared on the last approved proof.
• Every change to the rendering led to a new version and a new approval.
• A cancellation during production was handled by a named person, with a written decision.
• Review links sent before the cancellation no longer work.
• The customer was told when a change was dismissed.

What ProofLivo does

When a Shopify order changes after approval (quantities, products, personalisation), ProofLivo does not overwrite the file: a review opens and the team applies or dismisses the change. An address change alone triggers nothing. A cancellation stops jobs that have not started and revokes the customer's links; for a job already in production, it opens an exception the team must resolve before any other action. Every decision is timestamped and signed in the file history.