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.
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 by which an Organisation (Business, Merchant, or B2B Merchant) defines how it fulfils 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 the nearest location to the 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 organisation's 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 delivery is required.
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 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 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 Pages
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 their current stage.
In List view, however, you can view and search Orders across all queues and stages.
You can click an Order in 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 page 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 page.
Delete - Delete the Order, available only for Orders in Pending or New states.
Clone - Cloning an order allows a 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 recalculated to reflect the contact and order options.
A bell sound will be heard if the Order summary page 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 user via the back-end, by navigating to Commerce > Orders > Create Order either from the Kanban or List view pages.
By an integrator.
When placing an Order via the back-end, the user follows the Order flow from page to page 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 - 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 page.
Configure Orders to be automatically transitioned to a status of Completed using a Fulfilment Policy. Refer to the 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 page, 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 page 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 page. Activities can be minor tasks which need to be scheduled as part of the order fulfilment process.
View Approvals
These are the contact or user approvals required to progress the order. Approved and rejected requests appear here.
To request an approval when needed from the contact or user, an Automation (with trigger event Approval on Order Stage Change) must be configured. Use the additional authorised users option to allow users to respond on behalf of the contact.
A user can see pending requests for their approval by clicking on their signed-in user name in the top right-hand corner of any screen > My Approvals.
View Events History
View a log of actions taken against the Order from the moment of creation.
Edit
Update the Order. The user will be guided through a flow similar to the new order flow, progressing through the necessary steps to add new items, remove existing ones, or change ordered quantities.
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.
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 page.
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 the financial transactions associated with the Order, including invoices and credit notes. Invoices can be easily credited through the Issue a Credit Note option when returning delivered items to the Organisation.
If any items have been dispatched but not invoiced yet, then you'll see a Create Order Invoice option on this page. You can use this option to create an invoice for such items.
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.
Custom Forms
View the order in a different form if an external implementation is available.
Find out more about custom forms here.
Adding Ad Hoc Milestone Payments
A back-end 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 completion of the Order, all milestone payments (whether ad hoc or triggered by order progression) are deducted from the final invoice amount.
The Milestones section on the Order page is visible even if invoice milestones have been configured for the Order Queue to which the Order has been assigned.
This option is available only for Orders with stockable physical goods. It allows a 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.
CRM.COM allows a 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.
Custom Preferences
Custom fields let you add extra details to Orders to track information specific to your business needs. View and edit custom fields from this card.
Find out more about Custom Fields here.
Attachments
Upload attachments related to the order either as a file or a link. These attachments are for internal use only.
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 page.
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 page (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 setup and edit or create your own as needed.
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.
Block CRM.COM Wallet Funds Until Order Completion
When an order is placed using the CRM.COM Wallet as the payment method, funds equal to the order amount are automatically reserved, even if the order is not invoiced upfront. This may include automatically topping up the wallet to cover the required amount. If the funds cannot be secured, the order is rejected.
The reserved funds remain blocked until the order is completed, at which point the order is invoiced, and the funds are consumed.
Blocked funds appear on the Financial Events screen and on the contact’s statement, with a lock icon alongside the transaction, as shown below.
This setting can’t be used in conjunction with Invoice Order on New Stage, Invoice order upon reaching the point of no return or order milestone invoicing.
Use as Device Plan
This option can be activated if the order queue is utilised for device plans. Device plan purchasing allows contacts to buy a device from a retailer and pay it off in regular instalments over a specified period, rather than paying the full amount upfront.
When adding the price for the traceable physical product (device), be sure to select the appropriate device plan (order queue) to be used.
Create Milestone Plan
Select this option to quickly create multiple queue stages with invoice milestones. Specify the initial deposit amount, the number of stages to generate, a prefix for the stage names, and the time interval for automatically progressing an order to the next stage. The invoice milestone amount is automatically calculated based on the number of stages created. After the stages have been created, you can, of course, manually change any of these settings for a stage.
Alternatively, configure the invoice milestone separately per stage.
Invoice Order on ‘New’ Stage
Enable this option in the New stage of the Order queue if the Business wants to automatically invoice a Contact upon placing an Order. Once the Order queue is activated, this setting cannot be modified.
This option can’t be used in conjunction with the 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. The PoNR is set on a stage, and only one can be set per queue.
Invoice Order upon reaching the Point of No Return
Once a stage in the queue is identified as the Point of No Return, the user can also designate it as the stage at which the invoice will be issued.
This option can’t be used if the order Invoice order on New stage or Invoice Milestones have been set up for the same queue.
Order progression to the next stage
This setting determines how an order in the queue advances to the next stage. By default, orders progress manually when a user moves them forward. However, orders can also be configured to progress automatically after a specified time interval.
This setting is available for all New and In Progress queue states.
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 of the Order total to invoice when the Queue stage is reached. Multiple invoice milestones can be added to a queue.
It is not possible to add an Invoice Milestone to Orders in the Completed or Cancelled states. This is because, once an Order is completed, a final invoice is automatically issued to the Contact (unless the Order is invoiced upon creation).
The final invoice includes all physical goods and services that have not yet been invoiced during the Order’s lifecycle, with any previously applied Invoice Milestone amounts deducted from the total. If this results in a negative balance, a credit note is issued to the Contact.
Numbering Schemes
Order numbers are automatically generated 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.