Setting up Automatic Order Processing

Related Article

When setting up automatic order processing, you may also want to set up your Order Statuses. To view the KB article on this, follow This Link.

Word of Warning against Fraud

While Automatic Order Processing is an incredibly powerful tool for managing online orders, we usually recommend that you place very strict limits on what orders you will automatically process. 

It is not uncommon for fraudsters to place fraudulent orders just to test stolen credit cards. With over 270,000 reports, credit card fraud was the most common type of identity theft last year and more than doubled from 2017 to 2019.

For this reason, we have many built in protections that you can utilize against fraud.

A few baseline recommendations for the conditions of the automatic order processing:

1. Shipping address is the same as billing address
2. Order location is within X miles of shipping address (that is, the IP address where the order originated isn’t hundreds or thousands of miles from the shipping address)
3. Price is over X and under Y (what is the ballpark that you would consider a “normal” order… if it’s way below or way above that, don’t let it be processed without a manual review)

Additionally, we now offer CoreGuard for added protection against fraud. If you would like to learn more about CoreGuard, please watch This Webinar.

Automatic Order Processing

To get to automatic order processing, go to Orders -> Settings -> Automatic Processing Controls

To add a new control, first click the blue "+ ADD" button.

Details Tab

Sort Order priority is only used when an order meets the conditions of multiple controls. A lower Sort Order number will have a higher priority. 

Internal use only is put on every control table and isn't relevant to automatic order processing since it doesn't go out to the public.

Conditions Tab

As mentioned above, many of the conditions in here are for protection against fraud.

In order for an order to be automatically processed, the order will need to meet all of the conditions specified here. Most of these are self-explanatory but I will go over a few regardless.

* "Does Not contain product tagged as" - For example, if you select FFL required, if the order contains 5 products that aren't tagged as FFL required and 1 product that IS tagged as FFL required, it will not meet this condition and the order will not be automatically processed. This same logic applies to the category and department dropdowns.

* "Contains ONLY products in department" - If you are setting up automatic order processing for a non-physical item like a class or membership, you should select the appropriate department from the dropdown. This way, if someone orders, for example, a magazine or cleaning cloth at the same time as the class, it won't automatically get processed without you knowing. 

* "does NOT contain product available in local inventory" - if a dealer has their own local inventory, they may not want to automatically process this order.

* Order total is over or under - for example, you set an automatic shipment but only if it's under $50 because you don't want to automatically ship expensive items.

* "Shipping address is same as billing address" - Fraud Protection

* "Order location within miles of shipping address" - Fraud protection... For example, the ip address where the order is placed is within a certain radius of the shipping address.

* "Order location more than x miles from shipping address" - could flag this with a status that says "Possible Fraud" 

* "Customer has X or more previous orders" - for longstanding customers, you may want to go ahead and ship the item, even if it's a large order or would normally be suspicious. 

Actions

If all conditions are met, what do you want this control to do...

For example, if someone orders a membership, you send them a welcome email for their membership. 

* Set Order Status - These need to be setup separately in Orders -> Settings -> Order Status. This is an extensive subject and will be covered separately in this Knowledge Base Article. 

Examples of order status you could set include:

1. FFL File Needed
2. Finance Approved
3. Need additional information from the customer
4. Needs FFL
5. Out to Coating
6. Payments may not have gotten completed
7. Shipment Error
8. Subscription
9. Waiting on finance application
10. Pending
11. In Transit
12. Shipped
13. Membership Fee Processed

IMPORTANT - Status of the order can show up under the customer's "My Orders" page so you only want this to set these up for certain order statuses. Many of these should be marked internal use only...

However, a status like "Shipped" you WOULD probably want the customer to see that.

Other Fields

The other fields are also fairly self explanatory.