Introduction

Effective order management is an essential part of the administration of any Online Store. Therefore, you should be confident in your knowledge and abilities to properly handle your customers' orders. Fortunately, X-Cart provides an intuitive and easy-to-control order management system. In the following lines, we are going to review all the specifications of the process of handling your customers' orders.

Order Statuses Overview

To be able to review, understand, and accurately process orders, you should have to be aware of all Order Statuses in X-Cart. Therefore, before we go further, we would like to ensure a solid understanding of the possible Order Statuses.

In X-Cart, the default Order Statuses are divided into two general groups.

Based on Payment:

• Awaiting payment - This status indicates the payment is not processed yet. It is used as a default status for all ordered for which an offline payment method is selected. It is also used as a temporary status for orders with an online payment method selected, which still await payment. For such orders, it marks the payment details were submitted by the customer, but the payment is not processed yet.
• Paid - This status indicates that an online method had been selected, and the payment was successfully processed and transferred to the store's bank account.
• Partially paid - This status indicates that whether there was a partial payment or partial refund processed.
• Authorized - This is a status that could only be set by a payment processor. It indicates a check had been performed to the customer account to ensure sufficient availability, the request for the transfer had been made, but it has not been completed yet.
• Declined - This is a status that could only be set by a payment processor. It indicates that a charge attempt had been made, but it failed, and the order was automatically canceled.
• Cancelled - This status indicates the store owner had manually canceled the order.
• Refunded - This status indicated a full refund had been successfully processed.

Based on Fulfillment:

• New - This is the initial status assigned to all orders once they are created.
• New/Backorder - This status can be assigned only by the X-Cart system. It indicated new orders submitted while an out-of-stock status was assigned to the products.
• Processing - This status indicates the store admin is currently working on the order.
• Shipped - This status indicates the store admin sent the order items.
• Delivered - This status indicates the customer received the order items.
• Will not deliver  - This status indicates the order could not/will not be delivered to the customer.
• Returned - This status indicates the order items were successfully returned to the store owner by the customer.
• Not Finished - This status is assigned when a payment is initiated, but it is canceled or fails, and the order is assigned to a "Declined" status.

With that said, we hope you have a perfectly clear understanding of each of the default Statuses that could possibly be assigned to your orders.

Orders List Overview

Now, let's get you confident in working with the Order system interface. For a start, you have to get there by navigating through the left-hand side menu bar in your X-Cart Admin Area to Orders > Orders list.

In this section, you can see a neat and structured table containing all your orders. Each row displays essential information, such as the order number, date of creation, customer names, Payment status, Fulfillment status, and order amount.

At the very top of the page, you can see a few links that allow you to list and sort the orders per status, followed by a handy search tool, which can be expanded by clicking on the arrow icon.

As a store owner, order processing is going to be one of the main actions you are going to perform. Conveniently enough, X-Cart allows you to manage the entire process within this single page.

Processing Orders

The Order Management process starts when an order is submitted, and it goes through tracking and fulfilling the order. When the customer receives the order items, it means the process is completed. Having this in mind, as a store admin, you might need to change the order status several times. Note that this process may vary depending on the payment methods you support on your store.

Orders processed with Online Payments are being automatically updated by the X-Cart system when it receives a confirmation from the payment processor. However, for orders submitted with Offline payment methods, you have to update the statuses manually once you successfully receive the payment. This could be done as simply as a mouse click.

For what it matters, you can do that in two ways - you can either manually update the order statuses per order or in bulk.

Following the first method, you have to select the applicable Payment Status from the corresponding dropdown menu and click on the "Save changes" button to apply them.

Updating multiple orders at once could be quite more convenient and efficient in the actual workflow. To so, you have to tick the corresponding checkboxes of the orders you have to update, click on the dollar bill icon at the bottom of the page and select the status to be applied from the list of options.

In such cases, you might find the search tool particularly useful as it allows you to list all orders assigned with a particular status.

You can update the Fulfillment Statuses in the exact same manner. For bulk editing, you have to select the truck icon instead.

Reviewing Order Details

For advanced order management, you have to review the full order details. To do so, you have to click on the order number. This action takes you to the order details page.

The order details page consists of three separate tabs. Each one holds essential order information.

Under the "General info" tab, you can adjust the main order details.

• Customer email address - You can change the email address, if necessary.
• Staff note - You can leave a note for your or other admin users' reference.
• Payment method - Only the Offline Payment methods can be changed.
• Transaction ID - The transaction ID can not be edited.
• Shipping method - The shipping method can be changed to any available shipping method.
• Fulfillment status - You can change the status from here as well.
• Payment status - The same applies for this status.
• Tracking number - If applicable, you can assign a tracking number to the order by clicking on the "Add tracking number" button. The number can be up to 32 symbols long.
• Billing address - You can edit the details if necessary.
• Shipping address - The same applies here.

Below the "General info" page, you can review and edit the Order items. Each aspect of the items can be adjusted. You can change the product pricing, the quantity, the discount amount, the shipping cost, and the tax amount. You can also add coupon code(s) and notes intended for the customer. You are allowed to add new products or remove the selected products.

When you perform the desired changes, please click on the "Save changes" button to apply them. You may also consider thicking the "Don't notify customer" checkbox in case you do not want the customer to be informed of the changes with an email message.

Note that depending on the changes you have made, you might have to click on a "Recalculate total" button, which is going to appear on the same line, first before you are able to save the changes.

From the following "Invoice" tab you are able to review the actual order invoice and print it if necessary.

The last "Messages" tab holds the communication history with the customer. You can use it in case you need to update the customer for their order status or other order-related information.

That is all you need to know concerning the management of your store's orders. We hope this information was useful to you, and you have managed to learn handy new skills. In case you have additional questions, please contact our Support Team.