Revision as of 16:49, 5 August 2020

About Orders

Every time a user buys something from you, this creates an "order" record. The order holds all the details relating to a checkout process, including a unique reference number, any promo codes that the client used, the affiliate who referred them, and fraud check results (if enabled).

The system doesn't create orders for renewals, as those don't involve a new checkout process and are recurring invoices for a previous order. Orders always remain pending until admin review, even though the items inside them will auto activate (if you set them to), allowing your staff to review and process all the new orders you receive and run any manual checks or actions you deem necessary for new purchases.

The system assigns two unique numbers to each order. First, the ID Number is an internal reference that the system uses. Your first order will be ID 1, the second will be ID 2, and so on. The system also assigns them an Order Number (or Order #). This is the number your clients will receive at the end of the checkout process and is a randomly generated 10 digit number. This won't divulge the size of your company.

Managing Orders

Order Details Page

You can manage orders from the Order tab. The menu provides the ability to quickly filter orders by status. For more granular filtering and searching, use the Search/Filter tab on the Manage Orders page.*

• Click the Order ID to view the Order Details page. This page shows all the information pertaining to the order. The first section displays useful reference information:
  • The date and time when the client placed it.
  • The details of the client who placed it.
  • The promotion code and discount they used (if any).
  • The Payment method and total amount due.
  • The Invoice ID for this order. Click it to see the invoice in full.
  • The IP address of the client
  • The affiliate who referred the client and a link to manually assign one.
• The Order Items section lists each of the products, services and domains the client has ordered alongside the Status and Payment Status, providing an at-a-glance reference to whether someone has already created the account and whether you have received payment.
• If products are in pending status, as in the screenshot, then the system will display a number of text fields, dropdowns, and checkboxes. For more information on these refer to Accepting Pending Orders below.
• If you have enabled a Fraud Protection module, the system will display Fraud Check Results next (the screenshot uses Maxmind). For more information, see Reviewing Fraud Check Results
• If you have enabled it in General Settings, the system displays the Notes / Additional Information here if the client provided any when placing the order.
• The Available Action buttons allow you to change the status of the order:
  • Accept Order — Refer to Accepting Pending Orders below.
  • Cancel Order — Sets the order status to Cancelled, runs module termination for any active products in the order (removing accounts from the server and setting the product status to Cancelled) and also sets the status of an unpaid invoice for the order to Cancelled.
  • Cancel & Refund — Sets the order status to Cancelled, runs module termination for any active products, and refunds any payment against the invoice for the order via the payment gateway (if the module supports it).
  • Set as Fraud — Runs the module termination for any active products in the order, cancels the associated invoice, and changes the order's status to Fraud.
  • Set Back to Pending — Changes the status of products and services and the order to Pending status.
  • Delete Order — Removes the order and everything relating to it. Only use this option if you want to irrevocably remove the order from the system. This includes deleting the products or services within that order and the associated invoice.

Bulk Management

At the bottom of the Orders page are a number of bulk management options that you can use to change the status of multiple orders at once. These tools only change the status of the order; they do not run any module commands to provision or terminate accounts. You can only do this via the Order Details page.

Placing an Order

You can place an order by going to Orders > Add New Order.

Note: Instead of using the dropdown menu on the add order page to find a client, use the WHMCS intelligent search. Then, from the Actions menu on the Clients Summary page, click the Add New Order link. The system will preselect the client.

• Begin by selecting the client from the dropdown and choosing the payment gateway with which you want the client to pay.
• Select a promo code from the dropdown of active promotions to apply a discount to the order. The system will apply any discount amount that you select here to the order, regardless of any requirements in the promotion configuration. When staff select a discount, the system always applies it.
• If you need to create a custom promotion code, use the "Create Custom Promo" button. This feature requires that the Administrator User have both the "Use Any Promotion Code on Order" and "Create/Edit Promotions" permissions. You can read more about permissions on the Administrators and Permissions page.
• Next, choose the product or service and billing cycle. Here you can specify a quantity if you wish to add duplicates of the same product and specify a price override if you don’t wish to charge the standard product pricing.
• If the package comes with a domain, enter the user's domain in the box. If the client registered the domain with you, you should select the "Register" option and choose any addons the user has for their domain.
• To add more products to the order, click the “Add Another Product” link. This allows you to add a different product, while the quantity option above would add exact duplicates.
• The Order Setting options allow control over whether the system sends the order confirmation email to the client, whether it generates an invoice, and whether it emails an invoice notification to the client. There are three options:
  • Order Confirmation — Send the Order Confirmation email.
  • Generate Invoice — Create an invoice for this service, as shown in the order summary section.
  • Send Email — Send the Invoice Created email template.

Accepting Pending Orders

Whenever a client places an order in WHMCS, it comes in as a pending order. To view pending orders, go to Orders > List Pending Orders and click the Order ID. From there, you can accept or deny the order.

Even if you have enabled auto-activation, while the system may automatically provision and deliver products and services in that order to the customer, the order status will remain pending until you manually confirm it. This is so that you can always see and review the new orders you've had and be able to, for example, manually review, check for fraud, or check for other problems.

Products

If the order contains any products, you will see those in the list of order items. If you linked the products to a module and you haven't activated the product or service yet (for example, by auto-activation on payment) then you'll see the options to select a server to install it to, define a username and password, and checkboxes to create the account and send the welcome email. Checking the "Run Module Create" box will run the associated module creation command when you accept the order.

Domains

If the order contains any domains, and an automated action on receipt of payment hasn't activated them, then you'll also have the option to choose a Domain Registrar and checkbox for "Send to Registrar" to specify whether to submit it via the API. You'll need to do this if you haven't enabled automatic registration or are wanting to register or transfer the domain without payment.

It is important to note that while all orders are pending until you activate them, the system will automatically activate items in that order (hosting accounts and domains) based on your auto setup options and auto registration options. If you have configured them to do this instantly upon payment, that will happen while the order remains pending. This is to ensure you manually review each order you get.

Reviewing Fraud Check Results

If you use the MaxMind service, then you might want to check the results that MaxMind sends back regarding an order. You can do this from the order details page. You get to that by clicking the Order ID number for an order next to the order in the list of orders. You will then see a "Fraud Check Results" option which will list what you received from MaxMind regarding that order.

If you decide that the order was in fact not fraudulent, and you want to manually overide the fraud check, you can do that by clicking the Set Back to Pending button, which will change the order status from Fraud to Pending and the invoice back to Unpaid. This allows the user to go ahead and make payment from the client area as normal, or, if a merchant gateway is in use, you can click through to the invoice and instantly attempt to capture the clients payment using the Attempt Capture button on the invoice.

If an order's fraud score is over your setting's threshold, it will skip the 'Pending' status and the system will set it to 'Fraud'.

Custom Order Statuses

By default, there are four order statuses that should cover most situations: Pending, Active, Fraud and Cancelled. If you need more, you can create them via Configuration () > System Settings > Order Statuses or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Other > Order Statuses. For more information, see the Order Statuses page.