Backfill cashback for past orders

Plan: Enterprise plan. On other plans the page shows "Order backfill isn't included in your current plan. Contact support to enable it."; reach out through the in-app chat if you need it switched on.

Installed DollarBack on a store that has been trading for years? Backfill replays orders placed before DollarBack was active through your current cashback rules, so long-standing customers start with a balance instead of from zero. By the end of this page you'll have previewed a backfill, checked the results, and credited the orders you chose.

What a backfill does

• Replays each selected order through your active purchase cashback programs, exactly as they're configured today, and saves a cashback breakdown to the order. You can see it on the order page in Shopify admin; see Admin blocks on the customer & order pages.

• Optionally credits the customer with the calculated store credit.

• Sends no DollarBack email and fires no integrations. No Credited email, no Klaviyo, Omnisend, or Flow events. Customers find the credit in the widget and at checkout. The one exception is opt-in: Notify customers about their store credit sends Shopify's own store credit notification, not a DollarBack one (see Step 3).

• Skips orders DollarBack has already processed, so re-running over the same period is safe: those orders show up in the results as already processed, with the previously credited amount alongside what the rules would pay today, and are never touched.

• Doesn't count towards your plan's monthly order allowance. Backfilled orders aren't billable usage.

Before you start

Backfill uses your current setup, not the setup that existed when the order was placed. Check these first:

• Programs: only enabled purchase programs inside their start/end dates today take part. A seasonal program that has ended won't apply to orders from that season; a program you started this morning will apply to orders from last year. Discount-code reward programs are skipped; only store-credit programs are replayed. See Set up purchase cashback.

• Tiers: if tiers are enabled, each customer's current tier decides their multiplier and which programs they can earn from, so run a tier sync first (Sync tiers to customers). Customers with no tier assigned are skipped.

• Settings apply as usual: calculation base, store-credit and gift-card handling, excluded customer tags, maximum cashback per order, round-up. Two settings don't apply: the trigger event (use the order-status filter below instead) and the holding period. Backfilled credit is spendable immediately.

• Refunds and edits are already netted out, because the replay uses each order's current line items and totals. Fully cancelled orders are not skipped automatically, so filter by status or use a CSV if you want to leave them out.

Step 1: Open the backfill page

On the DollarBack home page, find the Backfill past orders card ("Apply cashback to historical orders") and click Open. The page is titled "Backfill past orders — Apply your current cashback rules to orders placed before DollarBack was active."

Step 2: Choose which orders

In the New backfill card, pick one of two ways to select orders:

Mode	How it selects	Notes
Date range	Every order created between the two dates (end date inclusive), defaulting to the last 90 days	Add an Order status filter: Any status, Paid only, or Fulfilled only
CSV of order IDs	Exactly the orders listed in your file	Needs an orderId column of numeric Shopify order IDs; other columns are ignored; maximum 100 KB. Duplicate IDs are collapsed. IDs that don't exist in your store are reported as not found and skipped

There's no limit on how old the orders can be or how many you select. Large ranges simply take longer.

Step 3: Choose the mode

Three checkboxes decide what the run writes. The first two set the mode:

Credit customers with the calculated store credit	Dry run	What happens
off	on	Dry run. Nothing is written to orders or customers. You get a downloadable CSV of what each order's outcome would have been. Start here.
off	off	Preview only (the default). The cashback breakdown is saved to each order, but no store credit is issued and no emails are sent.
on	off	Credit. The breakdown is saved and store credit is issued immediately, with expiry per the program's settings.

The third, Notify customers about their store credit, sits indented under Credit customers and is off by default. It only becomes available on a credited run — it stays greyed out while Credit customers is off or Dry run is on, because there is no credit to announce.

This checkbox sends Shopify's own store credit notification, not a DollarBack email. It is the only email a backfill can produce, and DollarBack's own templates and integrations stay silent either way. Turn it on deliberately: a backfill over several years of orders can mean thousands of customers hearing about a balance on the same afternoon. Leave it off if you would rather announce the credit yourself in a campaign.

Preview only is not a rehearsal for a credited run. Saving the breakdown marks those orders as processed, so a later credited run will list them as already processed and will not credit them. If you want to look before you credit, use Dry run, review the CSV, then run again with Credit customers on.

Click Start backfill. Only one backfill can run at a time per store; the button reads Backfill in progress… until it finishes.

Step 4: Track progress and download the results

While a run is active, the Recent backfills card shows a progress bar and four counters: Processed, Eligible, Credited, and Projected credit, refreshing every few seconds. Each finished run keeps a status badge (queued, running, completed, or failed), a Dry run badge where relevant, and a Download results button. The card lists your ten most recent runs.

The results CSV has one row per order: orderId, orderName, orderStatus, action, reason, previousCredit, projectedCredit, difference, currency.

action	Meaning
would_credit / would_write_metafield	Dry run: what a real run would have done
metafield_written	Breakdown saved; no credit issued (preview only, or the order earned nothing)
credited	Store credit issued
credit_duplicate	This backfill credit already existed, so it wasn't issued twice
credit_failed	Shopify rejected the credit; re-run to retry those orders
already_processed	DollarBack had already handled the order; previousCredit vs projectedCredit shows the difference, nothing was written
not_found	CSV mode: the order ID isn't in this store
error	The order couldn't be evaluated; see reason

Skipped orders carry the reason in reason: no_customer (guest checkout), no_active_config, discount_code_excluded (the order used a discount code and no program allows that), no_tier / tier_not_configured, paid_with_store_credit, paid_with_gift_card, excluded_customer_tag, or no_cashback (the rules produced $0).

Credited runs also appear in the credit log under DollarBack admin → Analytics → Activity, dated to the original order. See Credit logs & scheduled rewards.

Verify it works

1. Run a Dry run over a short range (a week) and download the CSV. Spot-check three would_credit rows against the orders in Shopify admin: does the projected credit match your program's rate on the eligible lines?

2. Run the same range with Credit customers on. The rows should now read credited, and the customers' balances should show the amounts in the widget or their customer page.

3. Run it a third time. Every row should read already_processed and no new credit should appear.

Common issues

• The page shows "Order backfill isn't included in your current plan": it's an Enterprise feature. Contact support through the in-app chat.

• "A backfill is already in progress": one run per store at a time. Wait for the current one to complete or fail. If a run looks stuck for more than 15 minutes with no progress, contact support.

• Credited run shows already_processed everywhere and no credit: an earlier preview-only run saved the breakdowns. Those orders can't be credited by backfill; use Bulk import credit (CSV) for a one-off top-up.

• Lots of no_tier rows: tiers are enabled but customers haven't been synced. Run Sync tiers to customers and re-run.

• A program you expected didn't apply: check it's enabled and its dates include today, not the order date.

• "CSV is too large (max 100 KB)" or "No 'orderId' column with numeric values found": split the file, and make sure the column header is exactly orderId with numeric IDs (not gid:// URLs).

• A run failed: the error is shown on the run's row. Re-running is safe; orders that were credited before the failure are reported as credit_duplicate or already_processed, not credited again.

Related articles

• How cashback is calculated

• When credit is issued

• Migrating from another loyalty app

• Bulk import credit (CSV)

• Plans, usage & overage billing