Orders
An Order is a request made by a Contact to purchase physical goods or services from a Business. The Business is responsible for receiving payment for the items ordered, and fulfilling the request. In CRM.COM, the Order flow is an end-to-end process that begins with Order creation and continues through charging, processing, and ultimately delivering the items to the Contact via the chosen supply method.
THE ESSENTIALS
Before digging into managing Orders, let's look closely at some key terms.
Queues, Stages & States
As mentioned above, an Order goes through a process from the moment of creation till its completion. This process is managed using Order Queues.
Order Queues
An order is assigned an order queue upon creation. An order queue defines the stages that an Order must progress through to reach completion. Multiple order queues can be configured by system users.
Queue Stages
Points in the queue where actions occur. Each stage maps to a state: New, In Progress, Completed, Cancelled. Stages may also trigger Invoice Milestones.
Order State
The stage reflects the current state of the Order in the queue.
A queue stage added by a user can only be mapped to the In Progress state, the other states are fixed. However, for the sake of completeness, here's a list of all order states:
Pending - Order has been placed but is not yet ready for processing (e.g. pending payment). An order can be in this state only if an Invoice Milestone exists for the first stage of the Order Queue.
New - Waiting to be processed.
In Progress - Order processing has started (multiple stages can be mapped to this state).
Completed - Ordered items have been delivered successfully.
Cancelled - The Order was cancelled at some point during its life cycle.
A default queue is created upon business sign-up with the minimum required stages.
Fulfilment
Fulfilment is the process whereby an Organisation (Business, Merchant or B2B Merchant) defines how they fulfil orders.
The fulfilment behaviour is defined via a Fulfilment policy that includes coverage, the available supply methods and possible delivery charges. Each organisation has a fulfilment policy, with merchants policies taking precedence over the business.
Coverage
Decides which organisation (Business, Merchant or Venue) fulfils the Order, based on postal codes or nearest location to contact’s address.
Supply Methods
An Order’s supply method indicates how ordered items will be provided to the contact. The supported supply methods are defined in an Organisations fulfilment policy.
Delivery - Items sent to the contact’s address.
Pick-up - Items collected by the contact from one of the business’s locations.
Direct Sale - Applicable for digital services only, no deliveryrequired.
Point of no Return
The Point of no Return (if configured) identifies the specific queue stage whereby restrictions apply if an order is cancelled from that point in time and onwards.
Prior to reaching the Point of no Return
The Order can be amended.
Cancelling the whole Order is permitted, but only if:
All issued invoices have been manually credited to the Contact.
All dispatched items are returned back to the warehouse.
Upon reaching the Point of no Return
An Order can be amended with additional items.
Dispatched items cannot be modified.
Undispatched items can be removed without invoicing the contact.
Cancelling the Order is permitted only if dispatched items have been invoiced. The ordered quantity is reduced to match what’s already dispatched (e.g., if 3 alarms were ordered but 2 have been dispatched, the ordered quantity will change to 2).
Invoice Milestones
Invoice Milestones can be set for order queue stages to indicate when a contact will be partially or fully invoiced for their order.
When an order reaches an invoice milestone stage, an invoice is automatically generated based on the milestone settings. Alternatively, users can create ad-hoc milestone invoices manually (and specify an amount) by editing the order.
A system user can override an Order’s Milestone Plan when creating or editing an Order via the back end. However, order progression is not dependent on invoice settlement.
Milestone-based vs Progress-based Orders
A contact will be invoiced for their order based on whether it’s milestone-based or progress-based.
Milestone-based orders - Invoices are automatically generated when the order reaches configured queue stages (Invoice Milestones).
Progress-based orders - Invoices are created manually for items already dispatched, without following a milestone plan.
Quotation
A Quotation is an automatically generated estimate of an Order’s cost, displayed on-screen during ordering. It updates in real time as items or quantities change, showing the total cost, payment due, and the amount the contact will pay when the order is placed.
Contacts can receive their Order Quotation via Automation when placing a new Order or of their Order is amended.
Orders Summary Screens
Navigate to Commerce > Orders to view and manage your Orders.
You can use two different views to search and manage your Orders, the Kanban view and List view. To navigate between views, click on the respective button in the top right-hand corner.
When in Kanban view, you must select the queue for which to view Orders. Orders are displayed based on the stage they are currently at.
In List view, however, you can view and search Orders across all queues and stages.
You can click on an Order from either view to see additional information, such as the items ordered.
The possible Order actions (…) from the Order card are:
Edit - Takes you to the Order detail screen to manage the Order.
Cancel - Available only for incomplete Orders, use this action to easily cancel an order without having to navigate to the details screen.
Delete - Delete the Order, available only for Orders in Pending or New states.
Clone - Cloning an order allows a system user to place a new order based on an existing one for the same or a different contact. During the ordering flow, changes can be made to the ordered items and quantities, and the order total is re-calculated to reflect the contact and order options.
A bell sound will be heard if the Order summary screen happens to be open when a new order is placed.
Creating an Order
New Orders can be placed:
By a Contact using a front-end device such as a consumer app or portal.
By a system user via the back-end system, by navigating to Commerce > Orders > Create Order either from the Kanban or List view screens.
By an integrator.
When placing an Order via the back-end system, the user follows the Order flow from screen to screen whilst progressing through the various steps required to complete the Order.
Contact Details
Start by selecting the Contact and the Account to be charged for the ordered items.
Complete the Fulfilment Information section to specify how the Contact will receive the items. Enter the delivery address or pick-up point as needed. For Direct Sale items, no additional input is required.
Select the Order Queue to define the Order's progression.
Items
The next step is to select the items for ordering. Users select the items required by the contact from the Product Catalogue. Notice that the Quotation on the right is updated with every action taken, reflecting the newly estimated Order cost.
The available Product Catalogue depends on the Business/Merchant/Service Provider fulfilling the Order. Therefore, only products that are available for sale by that particular Organisation will be presented.
Physical goods and services in CRM.COM have various compositions; flat, fixed bundle, flexible bundle, and composite products. During the ordering flow, users/Contacts must specify what they actually want to purchase.
Flat and Fixed bundles - A user/Contact simply selects the product to order.
Flexible bundles - It’s required to set up the actual product to order i.e. user/Contact should select the bundle’s components.
Composites - User/Contact selects which variant product to order as well as its modifiers.
Additionally when ordering termed services, more than one price might be available. For example, there might be a monthly and a quarterly price so it's up to the user/Contact to select a price. It is important to note that selecting a price also denotes the service’s price and billing terms.
Finally, the user/Contact selects whether they want to purchase or rent a traceable physical good (if applicable), by selecting either the sale or rental price.
Refer to the Product catalogue for more information on product configurations.
Payment Details
At this stage, the payment information must be provided. Contacts can use their wallet funds to (fully/partially) pay for an Order. Using wallet funds reduces the amount charged to the selected payment method, which could result in little or no payment being taken from the contact’s card or other payment method.
The available Payment Method types can be specified by the Fulfilment Policy of the Organisation fulfilling the Order. For example, a Business might only accept cash and card payment methods, so only those two will be available when ordering from that particular Business.
The Order's Invoice Milestone plan (if configured) can also be updated as part of the order’s Payment Information.
Adjusting Invoice Milestones
If the Order’s queue has at least one Invoice Milestone, the milestone invoice plan will be shown based on the queue configuration. Users can adjust it before placing the Order - existing milestones can be removed, and new ones can be added. Changes apply only to the specific Order and do not affect the overall queue configuration.
Stage - The queue stage at which the milestone applies. When reached, an invoice is generated and charged to the Contact’s account according to the milestone settings.
Milestone settings - The user-defined percentage or amount of the Order total. This overrides the milestone percentage in the queue configuration. (Note - milestone-specific amounts cannot be set in the queue configuration.)
Invoice amount based on Quotation - The actual invoice amount that will be charged to the Contact when the milestone stage is reached.
Checkout
The last step of the flow is the Checkout step. This is where the user reviews and confirms the Order with the Contact before placing it.
Totals - A detailed view of the Order financials, i.e. how the Contact will be invoiced and how/when a payment is due.
Ad hoc Discount - System users can optionally give an extra ad hoc discount to Contacts, thus reducing the Order amount due.
Amount Due - The final amount that the Contact will have to pay if the Order is placed.
Finally, complete the ordering process by placing the Order. An order number will be displayed if the order is successful.
Ordering Termed Services
Let's look at the Order estimated cost when Contacts order termed services. In such cases, the termed service cost is not included in the order cost, this is because at this point in time, the Contact is simply subscribing to the service. Any charges will be included in the Contact's upcoming bill.
Therefore, billing information is provided on ordering that includes:
The amount of the upcoming bill for the newly purchased service.
The billing period.
When the bill is expected to be paid, based on the Contact's credit terms and the services billing type (i.e. if it's pre-bill or post-bill).
Initial State
When an Order is placed:
If the first stage of the queue has no Invoice Milestone, the Order state is set to New.
If the first stage has an Invoice Milestone, an invoice is generated immediately. However, if the Contact has a zero credit limit, the Order state is set to Pending until it is invoiced and paid.
This state is shown on both the Order Kanban board and the Order Summary screen.
Subscription Services
If an Order includes a subscription service, the subscription will be automatically created upon placing the Order, and the Order will assume a state of Completed.
Refer to the Subscriptions manual for further information on handling Subscriptions via the Contact screen.
Configure Orders to be automatically transitioned to a status of Completed using a Fulfilment Policy. Refer to Fulfilment Policy for further information.
Managing an Order
Editing an Order
To edit an order from the Kanban or List view, click the options button (ellipses …) related to the Order and choose Edit.
All the Order detail information is available at a glance. At the top of the screen, you can see the Order Queue's sequence of stages (e.g. New, Started, Delivery, Completed in the example below), and the current state is clearly shown (New in the example below).
Several options are available from the Order screen via the options button (…). These vary according to the current Order stage, whether the Point of no Return has been reached, the type of items ordered etc.
Create Activity
Create and schedule an Activity related to the Order from the order screen. Activities can be minor tasks which need to be scheduled as part of the order fulfilment process.
Events History
View a log of actions taken against the Order from the moment of creation.
Adding Ad Hoc Milestone Payments
A back-end system user can manually record ad-hoc milestone payments when a Contact wishes to partially pay an Order. These payments are independent of the queue-based milestone invoices, which are issued automatically at specific stages. Ad-hoc milestones can be created anytime, and in total, all milestone payments (automatic or ad-hoc) can't exceed the Order’s total cost.
When creating an Ad hoc milestone payment, all that is needed is the payment amount.
An Invoice will be issued that includes the accounting product for this payment. Upon completing the Order, all milestone payments (either ad hoc or those generated due to order progression) are deducted from the final invoice amount.
The Milestones section on the Order screen is visible even if invoice milestones have been configured for the Order Queue to which the Order has been assigned.
Edit
Update the Order. The user will be taken through a flow similar to the new order flow, progressing through the necessary steps where new items can be added, existing ones can be removed or ordered quantities can be changed, etc.
An order can be updated under the following conditions:
If it’s not Completed or Cancelled.
Order items can be added, removed, or have quantities changed, provided that the Point of No Return rules are not violated and dispatched items are not affected.
The supply method cannot be changed.
The address can be changed but only for Delivery orders and as long as the fulfilling Organisation can still fulfil the Order at the new address.
Dispatch Items
This option is available only for Orders with stockable physical goods. It allows a system user to dispatch items from the Business warehouse to fulfil the Order and deliver them to the Contact. Multiple dispatches can be made during the Order’s lifecycle, but all items must be dispatched before the Order can be marked as Completed.
Return Dispatched Items
This option is available only if stockable physical goods have already been dispatched to the Contact. Items can be returned to the Business and its warehouse, but only as long as the Point of no Return has not been reached.
Print preview the Order and print it if necessary. This requires that a communication template for Orders has been configured. Refer to the Communications manual for further information.
Send Email
Email the Order to the Contact. This requires configuring a communication template for Orders. Refer to the Communications manual for further information.
View Financials
View the financial transactions related to the Order, such as invoices and credit notes. Invoices can be easily credited through the Issue a Credit Note option when returning delivered items back to the Organisation.
If any items have been dispatched but not invoiced yet, then you'll see a Create Order Invoice option on this screen. You can use this option to create an invoice for such items.
Progress Invoices
CRM.COM allows a system user to manually invoice physical goods that have been dispatched for an order as it progresses. If no invoice milestones exist, then invoices can be manually issued for services and expenses included in the Order.
To issue an invoice:
If one wishes to invoice for physical goods, then ensure that the items have been dispatched first.
Edit the Order> Navigate to View Financials.
Click on the Create Order Invoice button.
All stocked-out items that haven’t been invoiced yet will be presented in the invoice.
If no milestones are associated with the particular Order, then the user will also be able to invoice for any of the services or expenses included in the Order too.
Cancel
Cancelling an Order indicates that the Contact no longer requires the ordered items and has requested that the Order be terminated before completion.
An Order can be cancelled under the following conditions:
That the Order does not have a state of Cancelled or Completed.
There are no pending activities.
If cancelling before the Point of no Return, all issued invoices must be manually credited to the Contact before the cancellation.
If cancelling after the Point of no Return, all items that have been delivered must be manually invoiced.
Upon successfully cancelling an order:
Any awards earned for the order will not be reverted.
Any funds spent to pay for the order will not be refunded.
If a payment was charged to the contact’s bank card, the amount will be returned to the contact’s Account.
Note: The Purchase Event related to the order must be cancelled to revert awards and the spent amount.
Clone
Any Order (in any stage or state) can be cloned. Cloning an Order enables users to easily create a new Order having the same Queue, Supply method and ordered items but for a different Contact. In other words, the initial Order is used as a template for creating new Orders.
Cloning an Order is available only through the summary screen.
Progressing an Order
Progress an Order in Kanban view by dragging and dropping the Order to the next stage using the hamburger icon.
Alternatively, edit the Order and click on the next stage in the queue from the Order screen.
When progressing an Order, the user can optionally provide a comment for the progression.
Orders can only be progressed to the next stage, regressing orders to the previous stage is not permitted.
Completing an Order
An order is completed when it reaches the last stage in the order queue. Once an order has been completed, limited actions can be taken against the Order.
Completing an order without any ordered items
In cases where you need to complete an Order without any ordered items (i.e. all items have been deleted from an Order), you must first create and complete an Activity for the Order, then the Order can be completed successfully.
This can occur if the Contact no longer wants to proceed with the Order, but the Business still wants to track and the progress of tasks performed for the Order and then Complete it instead of Cancelling it. To complete the Order, at least one Activity must be logged. In general, an Order can be completed once the items have been delivered or at least one Activity has been completed.
Order Management Settings
The Order Management settings are all conveniently located under the Settings > Commerce > Order Management option. Here you’ll find everything you need to configure for orders. Let’s take a look at these settings one-by-one.
The five options along the top of the screen (Product Types, Products, Order Catalogues, Characteristics, Component Sets) should be used to configure the Product Catalogue. Refer to the Product Catalogue manual to find out more.
Operational
Set up the operational settings for ordering. Expand each section to view the preconfigured or existing set up and edit or create your own as needed.
Queues
Order queues group together Orders with similar characteristics and define how they progress through the various stages from creation to completion.
The New, Completed and Cancelled stages are part of the Order Queue by default. Each new stage added to the queue is associated with the In Progress state. Note that Completed and Cancelled are the only two possible final stages (and states) of the Order queue.
Invoice Milestones
To create Invoice Milestones - edit the Order queue, locate the queue stage where the Milestone will be added, and click on the downward arrow to expand the relevant section. Set the percentage amount of the Order which will be invoiced upon reaching that Queue stage. Multiple invoice milestones can be added to a queue.
It's not possible to add an Invoice Milestone to the Completed and Cancelled States reason being that when an Order is completed the final invoice will be charged to the Contact (unless the Order is invoiced upon creation). The final invoice will include all physical goods and services that have not been invoiced throughout the Order's life cycle whilst deducting the Invoice Milestone amounts from the final amount. A credit note will be issued to the Contact if the final amount is negative.
Invoice Contact Upon Order Creation
If the Business wants to automatically invoice a Contact at the moment an Order is placed, enable the corresponding checkbox in the New stage of the Order queue. Once the Order queue is activated, this setting cannot be modified.
Point of No Return
The Point of no Return is the defined moment before which any dispatched or undelivered goods can be returned through credit notes. Once this point is reached, any items delivered to the contact will be invoiced. It can be linked to a specific queue stage and can only be added after the queue has been created.
Numbering Schemes
Order numbers are automatically generated by the system whenever an Order is created. You can customise the number format through this setting, if no format is defined, the default configuration applies.
Categories
Define categories and sub-categories to be manually assigned to Orders when in edit mode.
Cancellation Reasons
Define the reasons for cancelling an Order, one of these can be selected when an Order is being cancelled.
Financials
Review and set the options for financial transactions that may be created due to an Order.
Financial Rules
Financial Rules for Orders can be used to define the type of Invoice and Credit Note to be issued when these are created through an automatic process against Orders. If none are specified, then the default types apply. Transaction types for Financial Rules can also be defined via Settings > Financials > Generic > Financial Transaction Types.
If using milestone invoicing, set the invoice type and select the milestone expense product for all milestone invoice charges.
Fulfilment
Fulfilment Policies
Your Business’s Fulfilment Policy
A Fulfilment Policy defines your business rules for managing Orders, including how and when orders are fulfilled, minimum order amounts, acceptable payment methods, and more.
A Fulfilment Policy is created automatically for a new business organisation and, by default, is inherited by all its subsidiaries in the business network (Merchants, Venues), unless a separate policy is defined for a specific Merchant or Venue. Multiple Fulfilment Policies can be configured for different supply methods, such as delivery, pick-up, and direct sale.
On the Fulfilment screen, a user can clearly see how many Merchants/Venues are using the Business’s fulfilment policy, and how many have their own.
Actions that can be taken from this screen:
Enable the pickup and delivery supply methods
Set policy conditions (see details in Creating a new Fulfilment Policy).
Set the operating hours.
Create an automation for provisioning of delivery orders (based on distance from location or postal code coverage).
Create additional charges that can be applied to an order, such as a delivery fee, an extra charge for delivering a bulky item, or a cancellation fee.
Creating a new Fulfilment Policy
When you select the option to create a new fulfilment policy, you’ll be redirected to a new screen.
Applicable for - Define whether the Fulfilment Policy is applicable across all organisations or specific organisations
Orders can be submitted if their total estimated cost is more than - Orders will only be accepted above the stated order cost, i.e. minimum order cost.
Automatically complete the order after - Use this when Orders do not need to be marked as Completed manually. The Order will automatically move to the Completed state after the specified time period.
Average order completion time is - Set the average time required to complete an order. This is used to calculate the estimated order completion time when an order is placed and displayed on the UI
Payment methods - Restrict the allowed methods of payment by selecting those acceptable by the organisation when placing an order.
Expenses - Use Expenses to define additional costs for orders, e.g. a delivery charge. Optionally, set up a minimum order cost for which the expense applies, e.g. charge a delivery fee of €1.50 for orders less than €5.00. Only Products of classification type Expenses Service can be specified as expense products on the fulfilment policy.
Segments - Optionally select the contact segments for which the fulfilment policy applies. If none are selected, the policy applies to all contacts.
A default Fulfilment Policy is created upon new business registration, which is valid for all organisations and all supply methods.
Fulfilment Flows
Configure how orders are fulfilled and whether contacts can choose their delivery location.
Orders can be fulfilled by
Single Merchant - Orders are fulfilled by one merchant location. This simplifies handling but limits product variety.
Multiple Merchants - Use this if your business network includes multiple merchants with their own products, allowing for a wider product selection. Orders with items from different merchants are split into separate sub-orders, one per merchant. This option requires a multi-merchant Business Network.
Allow contacts to select the delivery location?
This setting is only applicable for delivery Orders when there are multiple Merchants/Venues available to fulfil the order. Enabling this setting, allows contacts can choose the Merchant/Venue they prefer to fulfil their order (instead of being automatically assigned by the system).