In this short note, we describe all the elements in the semigroup $$\begin{eqnarray}S(X,Y)=\{f\in {\mathcal{T}}_{X}:f(Y)\subseteq Y\}\end{eqnarray}$$ which are left compatible with respect to the so-called natural partial order. This result corrects an error in a paper by Sun and Wang [‘Natural partial order in semigroups of transformations with invariant set’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.87 (2013), 94–107].