Creating and managing clients

Applies to: All tiers  ·  Last reviewed: 2026-10-23

What this is

A client is a brand you fulfill for. If you are a 3PL, each brand you ship for is a client, with its own products, orders, and sales channels. If you ship only your own brand, you are your own single client. This article covers creating a client, what gets set up with it, and archiving one when you stop fulfilling for them.

Create a client

1. Go to Settings > Clients.
2. Click New Client (top right).
3. Enter the Client Name. It is the only required field. You can also add an icon, the client's website (CanShip fetches the icon from it), a primary contact, and the brand's own address. That address is the brand's, not where its stock ships from.
4. Click Create.

What you get with a new client

• A Manual Orders channel is created automatically. Every new client starts with a "Manual Orders" sales channel, so you can place manual orders for that client right away without configuring a channel.
• No customer logins yet. Clients start with no logins assigned. You can grant client-portal access later.
• Add more channels anytime. Each client row has an Add Channel action. It offers a Shopify store, Extensiv Integration Manager, Amazon Seller Central, or another manual store.

The clients list

Settings > Clients shows each client's number, name, connected sales channels and customer logins, sorted by name. Each row ends with Add Channel, routing rules, and the archive button.

Changing a client

Click a client's row to open Edit Client. Change any field and click Save. The window closes and the list shows the change. A line above the list names the client and says it was saved.

The icon is fetched when a website is saved. Remove, beside the icon, takes it off and the client shows its initials. The icon is fetched again the next time the website changes. To fetch it again without changing the website, click Fetch from website beside Upload icon, then Save.

Archiving a client

Archive a client when you stop fulfilling for them. An archived client disappears from every client dropdown, so no new orders, products or receipts can be created for them. Their orders, shipments and history stay readable. To see their orders on Orders, turn on Show archived clients.

1. On Settings > Clients, click the archive button at the end of the client's row.
2. If the client still has anything in the warehouse, CanShip lists it, one line each, and you choose what to do with every line. For stock on hand the choices are Adjust out: returned to client, Adjust out: disposed, or Keep on hand, which leaves it on Inventory and on storage reports. An open order or an open receipt can be cancelled or left open. Nothing is chosen for you. Stock that an open order has allocated can be adjusted out only if that order is cancelled too. Otherwise CanShip says so, for example 2 units are allocated to the open orders; cancel them or keep the stock on hand, and the name box stays locked until you change one of the two.
3. Type the client's name to confirm. Capitalization does not matter. Archive client stays greyed until every line has a choice and the name matches.
4. CanShip confirms what it did, for example 5 units adjusted out as Returned to client · 1 order cancelled · 1 receipt cancelled.

Stock adjusted out this way is recorded in Reports > Audit Trail with the source Client archive, the reason you chose and who did it.

Stock kept on hand stays on Inventory, where the client is marked Archived. Products hides an archived client's products until you turn on Show archived clients.

If the client's stock changes while the window is open, CanShip does not archive. It says the stock changed, shows the new figure on that line and clears only that line's choice. The choices on the other lines and the name you typed stay. Choose again for the changed line and click Archive client. Nothing is changed until you do.

Restoring an archived client

Turn on Archived above the list to see archived clients. Their sales channels read "Paused while archived", and a client that was archived with stock kept on hand is marked with the units it still holds.

Click Restore on the row and confirm. The client comes back into every list and dropdown, and its products return to the daily view. Restoring does not undo what the archive did: stock that was adjusted out stays out, and cancelled orders stay cancelled.