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How-to

Searching Orders by Customer Comments or Merchant Notes

There is no free-text search box on the order search screen for the text written in the Customer Comments field (entered at checkout, or present on imported orders) or the Merchant Notes field (fraud rule triggers, upsell auto-close notes, hand-entered notes). To find orders by what's written in one of these fields, use one of the three paths below.

Option 1: Order Comment Report (customer comments)​

Use this when you need the customer-facing comments attached to orders in a date range.

  1. Navigate to Operations → Reporting → Order → Comments.
  2. Enter a From/To date range, or click one of the Common Date Ranges shortcuts.
  3. Click Generate Report.

The output includes the customer comment(s) attached to each order placed in that period. Large date ranges may route to Report Pickup instead of generating immediately.

See Order Comment Report for full details.

Option 2: Order Merchant Comments report (merchant/internal notes)​

Use this when you need internal notes — fraud rule triggers, upsell auto-close notes, or hand-entered merchant notes.

  1. Navigate to Operations → Reporting → Order → Merchant Note.
  2. Enter a From/To date range.
  3. Click Generate Report.

The output includes Order ID, Subtotal, Shipping, Tax, Total, and the full Merchant Notes content. This report is not schedule-able.

See Order Merchant Comments for full details.

note

Neither report supports filtering by keyword within the tool itself. To search for specific text across a large date range, generate the report and filter the exported result externally.

Option 3: Order export (combine comments with other order data)​

Use this when the comment or note text needs to be joined with other order attributes — for example, filtering by comment text alongside shipping method or item SKU.

  1. Create an export mapping file that includes the comment/note field(s) you need and, at minimum, the Order ID field.
  2. Run the Order Export using that mapping file.

This path requires more setup than Options 1 and 2, but is the most flexible when comments need to be combined with other order data.

Which option should I use?​

If you need...Use
Customer-facing comments only, for a date rangeOrder Comment Report
Merchant/internal notes only, for a date rangeOrder Merchant Comments report
Comments or notes joined with other order fieldsOrder export

Merchant comments can also be added or viewed during order editing, in the Shipping section of the order.

tip

An optional Transactional Merchant Comments mode creates an immutable, timestamped audit log of notes instead of editable free text. Contact support@ultracart.com to enable it — this does not change how the Merchant Comments report is run.

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