Workbench

Tell customers where their order actually is, without answering the same email all day.

• Your stages, in your words. “In the kiln”, “Awaiting proof”, “Back from powder coating”. Shopify has one word for the eight weeks between paid and shipped; you get as many as the work actually takes.
• Draft orders too. Take a deposit on a draft, build for six weeks, invoice at the end — and when that draft becomes a real order with a new number, both numbers still find the same timeline.
• Customers check it themselves. A page on your own storefront, at your own address, that answers “where is my order” without you typing the reply.
• Read-only, by design. Workbench reads your orders to show them to you. It cannot edit an order, change fulfillment, or touch anything in your shop.