Cutoff times

Updated 19 August 2026

A cutoff is your order deadline: order before it and we can dispatch today; order after it and dispatch moves to the next day. Flare updates the calendar in real time as the cutoff passes, so a shopper can never book a date you can't make.

Set one up

1. Open Date availability and find the cutoff section.
2. Add a cutoff and set:
   • Cutoff time: for example 12:00.
   • Warehouse timezone: the clock the cutoff runs on, for example Europe/London. This matters. It is your warehouse's time, not the shopper's.
   • Days it applies: which weekdays this cutoff is active. Leave all selected for an everyday cutoff, or create separate cutoffs for separate days, such as an earlier one on Fridays.
   • Before cutoff / After cutoff: how many days out the earliest dispatch is on either side of the deadline. The standard "order by noon, ships same day" is before = 0, after = 1.
3. Watch the live preview. It shows the calendar exactly as a shopper sees it right now.
4. Click Save.

How before/after works

Think of it as two promises:

• Before cutoff = 0: an order at 11:59 can dispatch today.
• After cutoff = 1: an order at 12:01 dispatches tomorrow.

Set larger numbers for a batching operation, e.g. before = 1, after = 2 means "order by Tuesday noon for Wednesday dispatch; after noon it's Thursday".

Rules to know

• Cutoffs act on the dispatch (ship) date, and delivery dates move with it via transit time. A missed cutoff shifts every downstream delivery date, not just "today".
• Multiple cutoffs: you can scope a cutoff to all orders or to specific shipping options (profiles). When both match, the profile-specific cutoff wins. Use this for "express orders by 2pm, standard by 5pm".
• Preparation/lead-time products are cutoff-aware: prep days count from the first dispatch day that hasn't already missed the cutoff, so a lead-time product can't sneak into next-day dispatch after the deadline.
• At checkout, if a shopper takes long enough that their selected date's cutoff passes mid-checkout, Flare blocks completion and asks them to pick a new date. The same rule is enforced server-side too.
• Customers who reschedule their own orders follow the Reschedule cutoff on Customer communications. Set its Cutoff source to Same as Date availability to reuse these cutoffs, or to Custom cutoff for date changes to give date changes their own deadline. See self-serve rescheduling.

Same-day delivery

Same-day is just: earliest date 0 + a cutoff with before = 0 + zero transit. Full recipe in Same-day delivery.