PROCESSING ORDERS

In this article you will find useful information on common tasks performed while processing orders.

How to process your orders placed by your customers through your eCommerce website:  

• To begin, you want to log into Web Shop Manager site
• and login through the Client Login link at the top of the screen
• or if your site is live, you can login through your domain name/admin and that will allow you to login to Web Shop Manager as well. 

We will begin by reviewing the System Configuration. 

• You can review by highlighting System from the dashboard
• and click on Configuration. 

Let’s begin, by reviewing the checkout screen

• by clicking the Checkout tab. 

Some items that you want to review before your site goes live and even after your site goes live are items directly related to when customers directly place their orders and as they are moving through the checkout process. 

On the checkout tab, the first item you will see is New Order Notifications. 

• If you want to receive an email whenever an order is placed on your website, you can add your email to the New Order Notification field. 
• You may add multiple email addresses by separating each email address by a comma and every email address listed in this field will receive a notification that an order has been placed. 
• It is also noteworthy to discuss that if you are using Authorize.net or Paypal, that you also have the ability within those systems to receive email notifications when a customer places an order. You may find that you don’t need email notifications from Web Shop Manager, at which time you can remove your email to stop the notifications.

The next item on the list is Checkout Requires a Login. 

• It allows you to decide whether you want your customers to login when they go through the checkout process. 
• By not enabling the box, it allows customers to checkout as a guest which means they do not have to create a new account or log into their existing account. 

The next field item is Checkout Terms URL. 

• This gives you the ability to add a box to your checkout screen that would link your customers to your terms and conditions
• and if your require it, it will also set up so that customers would have to check a box stating they agree to your terms and conditions before proceeding through the checkout.

The next field item is Questions. 

• This field allows you to ask your customers specific questions during the checkout process. These are open item questions such as, How did you hear about us? Is there an item on the site that you would like to see? This field gives you the ability to acquire information from your customers to where they can provide you feedback and that information is stored with the order. 
• You also have the ability when you’re on the order screen to export that information to a Microsoft Excel file and analyze the data.

The next field items: Checkout Messages allows you to push information to your customers

• Checkout Messages (Customer Information), are displayed on the checkout screen
• Checkout Message (Shipping and Payment), are displayed on the checkout screen
• Checkout Message (Confirmation), will display on the confirmation screen
• Email Message, will replace the paragraph that is displayed to the customer in the email confirmation

The next field item is Order Tracking

Order tracking is if you are paying someone to do a marketing campaign to where you advertise on someone else’s website and they get paid a percentage based on when people follow links on their site and get to your checkout screen.  They usually give a code and we at Web Design Solutions can help you to integrate that code into your site.

The next field item is Default Account

This allows you to decide when the customer decides to go the checkout screen, and what kind of customer they are

• Checkout as Guest
• I’m an Existing Customer
• I’m a New Customer

Currently the guest site is encouraged to use a guest checkout.  If the customer is checking out as a guest, the customer enters their email address in the Checkout as Guest Email field and would proceed in the address information and the selection of their shipping and payment. If you want to encourage your customers to create an account during the checkout process, then you may want to set the display option to I’m a New Customer. You can do this by choosing the drop down menu under Default Account and select Registration. 

The last two field items on the checkout screen (Min. Sale Threshold and Min. Sale Message)

• related to if you wanted your customers to order a certain amount before they are allowed to proceed in the checkout. 

The Cart Screen

• To get to the Cart screen, click on the Cart tab

On the cart screen, you have a couple of options that you can set for your customers: 

• One of the items is a Wishlist. 
• You can also designate a shipping estimator to be viewable to your customers. 
• You can choose where you want the Continue Shopping button to be displayed.
• You can make a decision as far as if you want a special message displayed to your customers in the Cart Message field. Whatever message you type in the Cart Message field is displayed to your customer on the top of the My Cart screen. 

The Recommended Items

• Recommended items are based on what you choose in the given drop down list.  You can select from any of your existing categories.  It will randomly select 3 products.  If you choose a specific category, it chooses from a specific category and never chooses an item that is already in the cart. 
• If you choose the Auto Generate option, it will display 3 products from within the same category that the products in the cart are located.

On the dashboard, you can see across the chart as orders come in.  

You have the ability to access your new orders from multiple locations from the dashboard. 

• The first location is from the Orders box to the to the left under new.
• Another location is from the New Orders link in the upper right hand corner. 
• Another way is to click on Orders from the navigation bar and click New to view orders. 

When your new orders are displayed, you’re going to view them by the most recent order submitted on top. 

• If you want to change the sort orders, just click on any of the titles on top. 
• If you want to look at a specific order, you can use the search bar to do so. 

Note: on the order screen you have a couple of buttons across the top that you can utilize to export order information. 

• If you choose to export with the Export XML button, it will automatically change the New status of your orders from New to Processing.  If you choose the button Export CSV, it will export all information about the order (excluding the items). 
• If you choose Export CSV w/ Items, it focuses on the individual items that were ordered and will list them for you. 
• If you want payment information to be exported, choose the Export CSV w/ Payments.

When Order status is used properly the graph will accurately display sales totals for the period selected

Let’s touch upon the New Orders screen

You can access this screen by clicking on Orders from the Navigation bar and clicking New. 

When the customer places their order, they receive an email from your store notifying them that the order has been placed.  If the customer created an account from the checkout process, they could log in and review their order status by going into their My Account screen. 

If you decide you want a paper copy of your orders, you could do a quick print of your invoice by clicking the print button.  By printing a new invoice, it removes the order from the New Orders queue and changes the status to Processing.  To access the order removed from the New status, you can click on Open.  You can see all orders in the New, Pending, or Process status. 

To edit an order

click on the Edit icon on the particular order. 

This opens the information, pertaining to that individual order.  You have the ability to choose 3 different kinds of prints options visible across the top:  

• You could print a Print Pick Ticket.  The Print Pick Ticket allows you to use within your warehouse which includes checkboxes to where they could check items to what they picked and packed. 
• You could choose the Print Packing Slip icon to use to ship with your order. The packing slip does not include any information about the dollar amounts or what was used to pay for your order. The Print Invoice icon is a replication of the same print from the New screen.  
• You may also edit address information.  Let’s say the customer called who has already placed an order and wanted the order shipped to a different location.  You have full capability to make these changes by clicking on the Edit icon and making the individual changes.  

You may also change the shipping method to what the customer has requested, but note that it will not change the shipping rate for you.  You must do that manually yourself by typing the appropriate amount you would like to charge the customer in the Shipping field on the bottom of the page. 

You may want to also charge the customer a handling fee for their speedy shipping request.  You must also charge the handling fee manually in the Handling field. 

Keep in mind that in order to add an item in the Order Information section, the item needs to be created and part of your products first.

For Sales Tax, you could either manually enter the sales tax for that order, or use the sales tax calculator and it will calculate the sales tax for you.  As you change the shipping fee, handling fee, or sales tax, it changes the total amount of the price, but not the amount that the customer’s card was authorized for. 

Note: It is important to have some sort of communication with that customer to confirm that they accept the additional charges.  It is recommended that you have written communication via email rather than verbal communication.  You can email the customer via WSM in the New Comment field below that you have modified their order to include the additional charges.  Make sure the box is checked for Email This Customer An Update Notification and click Update Order in the bottom right hand corner and the message is automatically emailed to the email address the customer provided. 

Let’s focus on the Payment Information

One of the first things that you want to look at are the ID and the AVS. 

• The ID verifies that you had a direct communication with Authorize.net account that was established for your site.  The ID is generated by Authorize.net, meaning if you were to go in and login to the Authorize.net account associated with your store, you could go look at this transaction based on that ID number. 
• The AVS information is fed back to Web Shop Manager from Authorize.net.  This information is generated when the customer performs the checkout process and it is validating whether the information supplied for the bill matches the information on the customer’s credit card. 

If you were to look at your Authorize.net account and look at a particular transaction, you would see that the transaction is authorized pending capture.  What needs to be done is to capture the funds and that would change the status in Authorize.net from Capture to Pending Settlement. 

To change the transaction from authorization to an actual capture:

• you need to edit the Edit icon, to the right of the word Pending. 
• You will notice that you can edit the amount. and change the status from Pending to Capture. 

If you need to change the total amount of the order, you could do so in two ways.  (If there is an increase in the amount),

• you can capture the original order of the amount and click Add Transaction and add the difference of the order to where the customer would see two different transactions. 
• Or you can cancel the original transaction and add a separate charge for the full amount. 

If there are no modifications to the order and the order has been captured:

• unclick the box for Email This Customer an Update Notification to the bottom left hand corner
• click Update Order on the bottom right hand corner.  This would change the order from pending to complete. 

If the customer would like a refund

• for that transaction, return to the order screen
• go to the Payment Information
• click the icon for Edit transaction. 
• Click the drop-down option Refund

Authorize.net will then analyze am I refunding an order or am I voiding an order? The difference between the two is has the transaction been settled?  If the transaction has been settled, then Web Shop Manager and Authorize.net will communicate a refund.  If the transaction has not been settled, then it will communicate a void.  You will see the proper notes in Authorize.net stating what has been done. 

Remember: to always uncheck the box for Email this Customer an Update Notification to the bottom left (unless you are communicating with the customer) and click Update Order on the bottom right hand corner. 

If the customer called and would like to charge the item to a different credit card, than previously supplied

• return to the Payment Information section on the order screen
• click Add Payment. 
• This brings a screen to enter the credit card information (Name, Number, Expiration Date, Cid, and the amount charged to the card). 

Once the order has been completed and shipped

• change the Order Status on the top right hand corner to Complete

You can also add a tracking number

• by clicking Add Tracking Number just below the order screen. 
• You then select your courier
• enter in the tracking number. 

When the tracking number is entered, it is emailed to the customer as an active link to where the customer can track their package.  The order is complete and it is now in the Complete queue.  

Connecting a customer order to an account

A customer may wish to connect an order to an account created after the order was placed, follow these steps

1. Locate the order in the back-end of the site
2. Click Edit on the order
3. Click Edit icon to the right of the Customer field at the top of the page
4. Begin typing the customer's name, an list of existing accounts will appear.
5. Select the proper customer
6. Click Update Order at the bottom and it will send an email to the customer and they will see the order when they log into the site

Export XML

When viewing "new" orders, clicking Export XML will change status from "new" to "processing"