Order management is an important part of the sales lifecycle for any e-commerce business. Store owners generally want to customize order, invoice, shipping, or credit memo IDs to be different than what Magento 2 generates by default. As these default IDs sometimes fail to address store owners' needs, being too long, too short, lacking informational value, or might have an existing format that does not meet their business requirements.

What Is Order Number?

The order number is essential information that buyers will receive after every successful checkout for identification. It allows store owners to monitor all of their online orders, invoices, and shipments and communicate the order status to buyers every time it's needed.

The order number is considered essential info for every e-commerce company to offer. It plays a vital role by letting buyers know what to expect for their delivery and be notified of any delays. Also, it allows both the buyers and the owners to supervise the order closely.

Why Does Order Number Need To Be Customized?

Magento 2 by default come with a 9-digit  order number that begins to run from 000000001 and increment on each order placed by the buyer.

Store owners want their order number to be different than what Magento 2 produces by default. They want to customize all documentation numbers related to orders and keep their business info private, hide real sales from competitors and have their order number look more professional to buyers. It is especially effective for online stores to hide the fact that they have just introduced to the market and reduce some doubt from customers.

The custom order number allows preventing the curiosity from the outsiders.

How To Customize Order, Invoice, Shipping & Credit Memo Numbers In Magento 2

If you want to seamlessly customize your order, invoice, shipping, and credit memo number, using any combination of letters, dates/times, and numbers, you can try the Custom Order Number Extension.

The settings of the extension are grouped into five sections: General, Order, Invoice Shipping, and Credit Meno.

The first section allows you to enables/disables the extension.

In the next section, you can define the order’s number format. The following variables are supported: {store}, {counter}, {yyyy}, {yy}, {m}, {mm}, {d}, {dd}, {rand}, {order_id}.

Next, you can define the starting number of your order and choose the period to reset the counter automatically. Check the “Reset Counter Now” box to reset the counter value immediately. Set a separate counter per each store. And, define and increment step, and padding length used to generate consecutive order numbers.

In the next "Invoice" section, you can use the same number as the order number, define the prefix, and choose what to replace in order numbers used for invoices.

The "Shipment" section settings include similar options:

The same for Credit Memo settings:

The custom order number appears at the admin grid after buyer placed the order

At the order view page, custom order number looks as follow:

Custom invoice number

Custom credit memo number

Custom shipping number

The custom order number will also appear on the customer account page as follow :

How To Switch Back To The Default Order Numbering Format?

In case you need to switch back to the default order ID format:

• Go to STORES ⟶ Configuration ⟶ ULMOD EXTENSIONS ⟶ Custom Order Number. and set Enabled field to "No."
• Clear your caches

Final Words

The Custom Order Number Extension For Magento 2, is a useful tool for any type of business, that will greatly improve the way you create orders, Invoices, shipments, and credit memos numbers. Thus, you will customize all documentation numbers related to orders, gain trust, keep your business info private., and increase the user-friendliness of your stored documents. As a result, you will significantly improve orders management, keep confidential business data safe, and increase the user-friendliness of your sales docs.