During checkout, OrderCentral supports two ways to capture the shipping address for each shipment. Which experience the buyer sees depends on how the storefront is configured and whether selectable Address records are available to the buyer.
Overview
The checkout shipping section supports two ways to capture a shipping address:
- Select a predefined shipping address
- Enter the shipping address directly in the shipment form
Both approaches can also include additional shipment fields, such as reference numbers, notes, or delivery-specific information.
Why this matters
Shipping address capture affects more than just where the goods are sent. The entered or selected address can influence:
- Which delivery methods are available
- Which shipping costs are calculated
- Which VAT rule is applied, based on the shipment shipping country and state
- Whether a buyer can proceed through checkout
- What information is stored on the shipment for fulfillment
This makes shipping address configuration an important part of both buyer experience and operational accuracy.
How the feature works
Each shipment in checkout contains a shipping address section and a delivery method section.
If the buyer can select from predefined addresses, the address is shown as a formatted, read-only address with a Change action. When the buyer selects a different address, OrderCentral updates the shipment with the selected Address record and copies the street, city, postal code, country, and state onto the shipment.
If predefined address selection is not available, the buyer completes the shipping address directly in the checkout form. OrderCentral saves changes to the shipment as the buyer updates the fields.
In both cases, additional shipment fields can appear alongside the address fields. These fields are configured separately and are stored on the shipment record.
Two supported address approaches
1. Predefined Address records
Use this approach when buyers should choose from approved shipping destinations rather than type free-form address data.
What the buyer sees:
- The current shipment address is displayed in read-only format
- A Change action lets the buyer open the address selector
- The buyer picks an approved shipping address for their account
- The selected address is written back to the shipment
What OrderCentral updates automatically:
- The shipment's Address To lookup
- Shipping Street
- Shipping City
- Shipping Postal Code
- Shipping Country
- Shipping State
Because VAT is calculated from the shipment shipping country and state in the default tax calculation, selecting a different address can also change the tax amount.
When to use this approach:
- Shipping destinations must be controlled centrally
- Buyers share a common list of approved account addresses
- You want to reduce bad address entry during checkout
- You need internal approval or governance around valid delivery locations
2. Editable shipment address fields
Use this approach when buyers should type or adjust the shipping address directly during checkout.
What the buyer sees:
- Shipment address fields such as street, city, postal code, country, and state
- Any additional configured shipment fields
- Validation on required fields before checkout can continue
What happens as the buyer edits:
- Each changed field is saved to the shipment
- When the core shipping address becomes complete and changes from the previous value, OrderCentral treats that as a shipping address change
- Delivery method availability can then be refreshed based on the updated address
In the default tax calculation, changes to shipping country or state can also change the VAT percentage and total tax amount.
When to use this approach:
- Buyers frequently ship to one-off destinations
- There is no controlled Address record process
- The business wants flexible, shipment-level address entry
- Buyers must provide shipment-specific address details at checkout
Additional shipment fields
OrderCentral can show more than the core address fields in the same shipping area. These are shipment fields configured for checkout, for example:
- Reference number
- Delivery notes
- Contact details
- Internal shipment attributes required by the business
These additional fields are saved on the shipment together with the shipping address information.
Important behavior:
Changing additional shipment fields does not by itself count as a shipping address change. OrderCentral treats the five core address fields as the address that can affect shipping logic.
The core address fields are:
- Shipping Street
- Shipping City
- Shipping Postal Code
- Shipping Country
- Shipping State
In the default tax calculation, Shipping Country and Shipping State are the fields that directly determine which VAT rule is selected.
Country and state behavior
Country and state are handled with country-aware selectors rather than plain free-text inputs.
What buyers experience:
- Country is selected from a list of available countries
- State is shown only when the selected country has states configured
- If the chosen country has no states, the state input is not required
- If the shipment contains an invalid predefined country or state value, the buyer is shown an error message
This helps keep shipping data aligned with configured country and state values.
It also helps ensure the correct VAT rule can be matched during tax calculation.
Delivery method awareness
The shipping form is delivery-method aware.
This means:
- The set of visible shipment fields can change depending on the selected delivery method
- When the delivery method changes, the shipping form reloads its configured fields
- This allows different shipping methods to require different shipment information
What is stored on the shipment
Regardless of which address approach is used, the shipment becomes the source of truth during checkout.
The shipment can store:
- The selected Address record in Address To
- The copied address fields used for fulfillment and calculation
- Any additional configured shipment fields completed during checkout
When to use each approach
Use predefined Address records when:
- Buyers should only use approved shipping destinations
- Multiple buyers on the same account share the same valid addresses
- Shipping accuracy and control are more important than flexibility
Use editable shipment fields when:
- Buyers need flexibility for one-time destinations
- Address governance is managed outside OrderCentral
- Checkout should allow shipment-specific address entry without maintaining Address records
Use both with additional shipment fields when:
- The address itself is controlled or editable, but extra operational data is still required per shipment