Taking orders

Where

Online Store → Online Order Statuses

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Sales → Online Order

Feature

Modules → Ecommerce

The step that makes checkout work

Do this before you open the shop

A brand-new shop cannot accept a single order. Every checkout fails until one row exists on the Order Statuses screen, and nothing anywhere tells you this — not the setup screens, not the shop, not the empty list.

It takes thirty seconds. Do it now.

1. Go to Online Store → Online Order Statuses and click New record.
2. Type the Label: Pending.
3. Type the System key: pending — lowercase, exactly.
4. Set Default to Yes.
5. Leave State as Active and save.

That is the minimum. Your shop can now take orders.

Adding your own labels

You can add labels for your team — Packing, Handed to courier, Ready for collection. Create them the same way, leaving System key blank, and use Order to control the sequence.

Set an order’s label from the row menu on Sale Transactions → Online Orders.

Shoppers never see these labels

The empty screen says these labels show shoppers where their order is. They do not. Shoppers see the shop’s own fixed stages — pending, confirmed, in transit, completed and so on. Everything you create here is for your own staff.

Only three system keys mean anything

pending, confirmed and cancelled are wired up: the shop tags new orders with your pending label, converting an order to a sale moves it to confirmed, and cancelling moves it to cancelled.

Anything else you type in System key — shipped, delivered, packing — is stored and read by nothing. Use plain labels with no system key for those.

Deleting the wrong label breaks your shop

There is no check before deleting. Delete the row carrying pending — or your only default — and checkout starts failing for every shopper, with nothing on screen to connect the two.

The confirmation only mentions that existing orders lose their label. Keep one pending row and one default at all times.

Two smaller things

State (Pending, Active, Inactive, Archived) filters this list and nothing else. Marking a label Archived does not remove it from the picker on an order.

A row whose Applies to reads All stores is shared with your other shops — editing it changes it everywhere.

How to set your delivery charges

Where

Online Store → Online Shipping Methods

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Sales → Online Order

Feature

Modules → Ecommerce

1. Go to Online Store → Online Shipping Methods and click New record.
2. Type the Method name — Standard delivery, Next day.
3. Write a Description. Shoppers read this at checkout.
4. Enter the Rate — the flat charge.
5. Optionally set Free over to waive it above a basket value.
6. Set Min. days and Max. days for the estimate shown at checkout.
7. Set Order to control where it sits in the list, leave Active on, and save.

Shoppers pick from these at checkout and are charged the rate you set. With no methods at all, the shop tells shoppers you arrange delivery directly and adds no charge.

The charge is always flat. There is no charge-by-weight, no charge-by-area and no per-item option. Free over compares against the goods total, before tax and before delivery.

Ignore the red banner at the top of this screen

The banner says delivery charges do not reach the sale created when an order is confirmed. That is out of date and wrong. Delivery charges do reach your books: they post as a line sold against your Shipping item, as revenue with no stock movement, carrying the tax the shopper paid.

The same stale warning appears on every order confirmation. Ignore it there too. See Online orders.

You cannot offer collection in store

The shop can display a Collect in store option, and the underlying record supports it — but the form has no field for it, so one cannot be created.

Worse, if such an option was ever set up for you another way, saving any edit to it silently turns it into a paid delivery method. Do not edit it.

Two more things

The Description is shown to shoppers as the delivery estimate line when you have not set a day range — it is not an internal note.

This screen has no scope column, but company-wide methods shared with your other shops appear in the list and can be edited here, changing them everywhere.

Dealing with orders as they arrive

That is covered under Selling — see Online orders. The short version: an order sits and waits, and Confirm into a sale is the single action that issues stock and posts to your books.

Related

• Online orders
• Shoppers and reviews