Purchase Order Payment & Delivery
After reading about purchase orders, once you have decided that you want to accept them as a payment method, this article will teach you how to manage purchase orders in FastSpring's SpringBoard. Payment of a purchase order can be fulfilled by a credit card or check. When customers choose purchase orders as the payment method, they will receive an invoice that links to the available payment options. During the set up process for purchase orders, you have a choice to deliver your products immediately after payment or to require your approval before delivering products. If you choose to require approval before product delivery, where you will manually approve or decline an order, you will also decide for each purchase order whether to deliver products before or after payment.
Deliver After Payment
If during the purchase order set up process you chose Deliver After Payment for purchase order processing, FastSpring will collect payment for the order before any product registration information is provided to the customer. This requires no manual effort. The customer is given a link to an invoice (see image below right) with information needed to complete the payment. Once the customer completes the payment, the delivery will occur. No delivery will occur until payment is completed. This selection adds a new section on your SpringBoard's Store Home in the Orders box called Pending Payment.
Pending Payment
When you click on Pending Payment, you will see a list of the orders where purchase orders were chosen as the payment method. You can see when the purchase order expires, if the payment has been attempted or received, if delivery has been made, and the order total. The oldest purchase orders are listed first because they are the closest the expiring. You can also see when a purchase order is automatically canceled if the payment time elapsed.
When you click on a pending order, the left side of the screen will give you additional details, including the customer's contact information and the products ordered. The right side of the screen will show you all of your available actions to take and all payment attempts.
Pending Payment Actions
In Actions, you have the following menu options:
- Resend Notifications: initiates a reminder email to your customer about an upcoming payment due date
- Customer Receipt / Invoice: shows you the receipt /invoice that was provided to the customer
- View Payment URL: provides a URL that you can give to the customer to enter payment details and complete the order
- Extend Due Date: extends the payment due date by 30 days to give customers more time to submit payment details (Note: this cannot be reversed)
- Process Payment: submits the order for processing
- Cancel: cancels the order (Note: this cannot be reversed)
Require Approval
If during the purchase order set up process you chose Require Approval for purchase order processing, your approval will be required before the ordered products are delivered to your customer. The customer will be shown a "pending approval" message after completing the order. You will receive an email notification and the order will need to be manually approved or declined. This selection adds two new sections on your SpringBoard's Store Home in the Orders box called Pending Approval and Pending Payment. During the approval process, you will decide if you want the delivery of your product to occur before payment or after payment.
Pending Approval
Every purchase order created initiates an email to you so that you know an action is required in SpringBoard for delivery of your customer’s order to occur. When this occurs, go to SpringBoard's Store Home » Pending Approval.
When you click on Pending Approval, you will see a list of purchase orders requiring action from you. You can see when the purchase order expires, the products ordered, and the order total. The oldest purchase orders are listed first because they are the closest the expiring. You can also see when a purchase order is automatically canceled if the payment time elapsed.
When you click on a pending order, the left side of the screen will give you additional details, including the customer's contact information The right side of the screen will show you all of your available actions to take on the approval.
Pending Approval Actions
- Approve - Deliver After Payment: This will approve the order and send an email to the customer with a link to pay the invoice. It will move this purchase order from the list in Pending Approval to the list in Pending Payment. Once the customer completes the payment, the product gets delivered to the customer.
- Approve - Deliver Before Payment: This will approve the order and send an email to the customer with a link to pay the invoice. It will move this purchase order from the list in Pending Approval to the list in Pending Payment. Although payment has not been received, fulfillment actions (these can include emails, download links, licenses and even shipping) set up for the product will be triggered to the customer immediately. This is the most common when dealing with large companies, governmental organizations, and other companies that you trust will deliver payment.
- Decline Order: Declining the order immediately cancels the order. You will select the reason that you are declining the order, optionally enter a note about the order that is visible to the customer, and select whether or not you want to notify the customer that you are declining the order.