What is a child order?

Whenever an order is partially fulfilled, two children are created: one representing the fulfilled portion, and the other the remaining part. The diagram below illustrates the subdivision of the original order into these fulfilled and remaining children.

Dealing with child Orders

• A child order serves solely for facilitating partial fulfillments. To identify a child order, look for a root_order_id that differs from the order's own id.
• Merchants typically do not need to concern themselves with child orders directly; we provide information about them only in the form of invoices.
• Child orders do not impact a buyer's credit limit; only the root order (i.e., the original order) does.

Refunding a partially fulfilled order

To issue a partial refund for a child order, all you need to capture is the amount and the line items for which the refund is being issued. The request can be made using the original order ID. When a refund is processed, it is associated with the original order, so there is no need to track the child order ID for which you are issuing a partial refund.

To create a valid credit note, it's essential to ensure that the line item and refund amount are accurately matched, and the values are corrected if necessary. This applies to all order-related operations.