Partial acceptance and split conversion

Read time: 5 minutes. Who it's for: Merchants whose buyers want to accept some lines from a proposal but not all, or to convert accepted lines to an order while leaving the rest negotiable.

⚠️ Partial acceptance and split conversion require the Professional plan or higher. Lite and Starter plans accept proposals whole-or-not-at-all. See Plans, trial, and billing.

This is one of QuotWay's most distinctive features. A typical RFQ has 5-20 lines, and the buyer often only commits to a subset on the first round. QuotWay lets them say "I'll take items A, B, and D at your proposed prices; let's keep negotiating C and E" without forcing the merchant to issue two separate proposals.

How buyers accept partially

When a buyer reviews a proposal in the buyer portal or Customer Account extension, each line has a per-line accept toggle. They can:

Accept all lines → quote status flips to FULLY_ACCEPTED.
Accept some lines and leave others off → quote status flips to PARTIALLY_ACCEPTED.
Counter-offer all or some → quote status flips to COUNTERED (a separate flow, see the worked example below).

The accepted line set is captured against the quote version. Future negotiation rounds operate on the non-accepted lines only; the accepted lines are frozen.

How merchants see partial acceptance

In the inbox, the quote shows PARTIALLY_ACCEPTED with a sub-row indicating the accepted-line count (for example, "3 of 5 lines"). Opening the quote shows two zones:

Accepted lines - frozen, ready for conversion.
Open lines - still negotiable. The merchant can issue a counter-proposal here.

The merchant can do two things from here:

Convert the accepted lines now → a draft order is created, and the non-accepted lines stay in PARTIALLY_ACCEPTED for follow-up.
Wait - let negotiation continue, and convert later when more lines land in the accepted bucket.

Split conversion - multiple draft orders per quote

Sometimes the merchant wants to convert different subsets of the quote into separate draft orders. Common reasons:

Different shipping addresses for different lines.
Different warehouses for different lines.
Different payment terms for different lines (B2B-capable stores).

The conversion preview lets the merchant create multiple conversion groups:

Open the accepted quote and select Convert.
Select which lines go in Group 1. Set its destination and any per-group overrides.
Click Save group + create another.
Repeat for Group 2, 3, and so on.
Click Convert all groups when satisfied.

QuotWay creates one Shopify draft order per group. The quote's top-level status tracks the aggregate:

PARTIALLY_CONVERTED → some groups converted.
FULLY_CONVERTED → every accepted line is in a converted group.

Worked example - partial accept, then split convert

Original quote: 5 lines × $100/unit × 10 units each = $5,000.

Round 1 - The buyer accepts lines 1, 2, and 4 at the proposed price. Status → PARTIALLY_ACCEPTED (3 of 5 lines).

Merchant action 1 - Convert the 3 accepted lines into a draft order. Status → PARTIALLY_CONVERTED. The buyer pays through Shopify checkout. The remaining 2 lines stay open.

Round 2 - The merchant counters lines 3 and 5 at $90/unit. The buyer accepts. Status → FULLY_ACCEPTED (5 of 5 lines now, after the counter).

Merchant action 2 - Convert lines 3 and 5 into a second draft order. Status → FULLY_CONVERTED. Done.

The buyer sees two Shopify orders: one for the first 3 lines, one for the last 2. The quote's audit log captures the full sequence.

Tax and shipping interactions

Shopify recomputes tax and shipping at draft-order time. If your proposal locked in a shipping rate, QuotWay forwards it as a line item on the draft order. If shipping was left pending, the merchant fills it in at draft-order time.

For split conversion, each group reconciles its own shipping. If the buyer is OK paying shipping per shipment, this is fine. If they want one consolidated shipping charge, convert all groups together.

Refunds and cancellations on a partial flow

Refunds work per draft order, not per quote. If the buyer wants to refund Group 1 only:

Issue the refund in your Shopify admin against that specific order.
QuotWay's webhook handler updates Group 1's status. The other groups' statuses are untouched.

Cancellation works the same way: cancel the draft order or the resulting Shopify order, and QuotWay reflects the new state on that group.

Common gotchas

Convert button greyed out. The accepted line count must be at least 1. Make sure the buyer has accepted at least one line, not just countered.
Split into 2 groups but only 1 draft order appears. Both groups must contain at least one line. Empty groups are skipped on create.
Tax drift warning on conversion. QuotWay recomputes tax using Shopify's draft-order calculator at conversion time. If it differs from the proposed tax by more than your configured threshold, you see a warning. This usually means the buyer's shipping address changed between proposal and conversion.

Convert a quote to a draft order - the simple, all-plans full-acceptance path.
Quoting in the buyer's currency - how prices look on a cross-currency partial flow.
PDF branding and documents - what the buyer sees on the Pro-Forma and Confirmation PDFs.