Managing Store Orders

The Orders screen is the single place where every sale your storefront receives lands and lives. The moment a customer fills their cart, enters their details and taps the order button on your public store, ScaanMe creates an order record and it appears here at the top of your list — newest first. This is your fulfilment desk: you read who ordered what, see where to deliver it, advance the order through its lifecycle, mark it paid, print an invoice, and message the buyer — all without leaving the page.

It is built for any store owner who sells through a ScaanMe storefront — a home baker taking cake orders, a supplement shop shipping nationwide, a restaurant running delivery and pickup. You do not need a separate POS or spreadsheet: orders are captured automatically, totals are recalculated on the server so a customer can never tamper with a price, and each order doubles as a CRM event that quietly warms the buyer into a lead you can follow up with. Think of this screen as both your kitchen ticket rail and your sales ledger in one.

To open it, go to your store from your dashboard and choose Manage Orders in the left navigation of the store editor. Every action you take here is locked to *your* stores only — ScaanMe scopes order lookups, status changes and payment updates to the cards you own, so even if someone guessed another order number they could never view or change a stranger's order. This is a deliberate safety design, not something you configure.

What it shows / why: the table is your at-a-glance queue. It loads newest-to-oldest so the freshest order is always on top, and every column is designed to answer one fulfilment question — who, where, how, how much, and what state it is in. Reading left to right gives you the whole story of an order without opening it.

Order Date is when the order was placed, shown in your own timezone and date format. Order ID is the unique order number (it always starts with OD followed by digits, e.g. OD8842137) and is a clickable link — tapping it opens the full order details. Use the Order ID as the reference you quote to a customer ("your order OD8842137 has shipped"); it never changes for the life of the order.

Delivery Address is the richest column: it stacks the customer's name in bold, their address as a link that opens Google Maps directions straight to them, their phone as a tel: link you can tap to call, and any delivery note they left underneath. This block is your single source for fulfilment — driver, dispatch and a quick call all start here. If a field is blank, the customer simply did not provide it (for example a pickup order may have no address).

Delivery Method shows how the customer chose to receive the order, as a coloured badge — typically Order For Delivery, Take Away, or Dine In, depending on which options your store enabled. This matters operationally: only Order For Delivery carries a delivery fee (and only when you configured one and the subtotal is below your free-delivery threshold), while take-away and dine-in never add a fee. It tells the kitchen or packer whether to prep for the road or the counter.

Order Status and Payment Status are two independent coloured badges — an order can be *delivered* yet still *pending* payment, or *paid* before it ships. Total shows the final amount the customer owes, prefixed with your store's currency symbol; this is the authoritative server-calculated grand total (items + any delivery fee − any coupon discount), never the number the browser sent. The final Actions column is the three-dot menu where you act on the order — covered in the next blocks.

What it does / why: before you fulfil or message anyone, open the order to see exactly what was bought. From the three-dot Actions menu (or by clicking the Order ID), choose View to open the order details panel. This shows the full item list — each product's image, name, the chosen variants (size, colour, flavour, etc.), the unit price and quantity — plus the delivery method, the customer's name, mapped address and phone, the order total, and both statuses in one scrollable card.

Numbered how-to: (1) Click the three-dot icon at the end of the order's row. (2) Click View. (3) Scroll the panel to read items, delivery details and totals. (4) Use the print button in the panel header if you want a paper picking slip. (5) Close the panel with the X when done. Nothing is changed by viewing — it is a read-only window, safe to open as often as you like.

For a formal document, choose Invoice from the same Actions menu instead. The invoice view rebuilds the order as a printable bill carrying your invoice prefix and number — a separate, sequential, never-reused counter (your prefix defaults to INV- unless you set your own in store settings). Unlike the Order ID, the invoice number increments cleanly per store, which is what your accountant and tax records want.

From the invoice panel you can Print it or Download it as a PDF using the buttons in the header, then hand it to the customer or file it. Edge case: the invoice reflects the order exactly as it was placed; if you later change the order's status or payment state, reopen the invoice to print the updated version — the panel always reads the live record, so a freshly downloaded PDF is always current.

What it does / why: the order status is the order's journey, and you move it forward by hand as you work — there is no auto-advance, because only you know when something is actually packed or out the door. Advancing the status keeps your queue honest and, optionally, sends the customer an instant WhatsApp update so they are never left wondering. Open the three-dot Actions menu on a row and choose Update Status.

In the modal, pick a status from the dropdown. The lifecycle options are: Pending (received, not yet started — the default a new order arrives as), Processing (you are preparing or packing it), Shipped (handed to the courier / on its way), Out for Delivery (the last leg, with the driver now), Delivered (the customer has it — the happy ending), and Cancelled (the order will not be fulfilled). Move forward as each real-world step happens; the badge colour in your table updates to match so your queue is scannable at a glance.

Numbered how-to: (1) Actions → Update Status. (2) Choose the new status (you must pick one — the form will not submit blank, and it warns you if you forget). (3) Confirm. The order updates instantly and the new badge appears in your table. The status change is saved to that order alone; it does not touch the customer's other orders or any other store.

Here is the powerful part: when you update the status, ScaanMe prepares a ready-to-send WhatsApp message to the customer's phone, pre-written for that exact status — for example "*Your order OD8842137 has been Shipped.*" or "*...has been Delivered. Enjoy!*". If the order has a phone number, a WhatsApp tab opens with the message typed and the customer's number filled in; you just press send. This turns every status change into a moment of proactive customer service with zero extra typing.

Edge cases worth knowing: if the order has no phone number (some pickup or dine-in orders), the WhatsApp step is simply skipped and the status still saves normally. The pre-written message uses the customer's number exactly as they entered it, so encourage buyers to include their country code for WhatsApp to open reliably. And Cancelled is a status, not a delete — the order stays in your records (and its invoice) for your books; nothing is erased.

What it does / why: payment status is tracked separately from order status because money and movement do not always line up. Most ScaanMe storefront orders are cash on delivery / cash on pickup by default, so they arrive needing you to confirm payment once you actually collect it. You record that here via Actions → Update Payment Status, keeping your ledger truthful and your Total column meaningful.

The payment options are: Paid (you received the money — the most common one to set), Pending (not yet collected — the usual starting state), Processing (a transfer or gateway is mid-flight), Failed (a payment attempt did not go through), Cancelled (no payment will be taken), Refunded (you returned the full amount), and Partially Refunded (you returned part of it). Choosing the right one keeps your reporting accurate and your CRM purchase value honest.

Numbered how-to: (1) Actions → Update Payment Status. (2) Choose the status (required — it warns if left blank). (3) Confirm; the green/amber/red payment badge updates immediately. Practical flow for a typical cash order: leave it Pending while in transit, then flip it to Paid the moment the driver confirms collection — many owners do the status update and the payment update back to back in the same minute.

Edge case: order status and payment status never overwrite each other — updating one leaves the other untouched. So a refunded-but-delivered order, or a paid-but-still-processing order, are both perfectly valid combinations you can represent. Use Refunded / Partially Refunded honestly even after delivery; it keeps your sales totals and CRM purchase values from overstating real revenue.

What it does / why: every successful store order does double duty — it is a sale *and* a customer-relationship signal. The instant the order is saved, ScaanMe quietly records a "Placed an order" activity in your CRM for the card owner, so the person who bought stops being an anonymous visitor and becomes a tracked contact you can nurture. You do nothing to enable this; it is wired into the checkout itself.

The order is matched to a CRM contact using the details the buyer entered — email-first when present (the reliable unique key), with phone as a fallback identity when there is no email. If that person already exists in your CRM (say they booked an appointment last month), the order attaches to their existing profile instead of creating a duplicate; if they are new, a fresh contact is created. Their earlier anonymous visits get stitched in too, so you can see the order in the context of their whole journey with you.

An order is a strongly weighted action in lead scoring — placing one is worth 60 points, which on its own pushes most buyers past the HOT threshold (a score of 50). That is by design: someone who paid you money is your warmest possible lead, and ScaanMe surfaces them at the top of your follow-up list so you remember to thank them, upsell, or ask for a review. The order's grand total is recorded as the activity's value in your store currency, so your CRM reflects real revenue per contact.

Two clarifications that prevent confusion. First, an order logs an activity and a purchase value on the contact — it does not automatically open a deal in your pipeline. Pipeline deals are created deliberately through the CRM, by design, so your kanban stays a reflection of opportunities you are actively working, not an auto-flood of every cash order. Second, this CRM step is best-effort and isolated: if anything ever hiccups on the CRM side, it can never fail or change the order itself — the sale always completes first, then the CRM event is recorded.

Work the top of the list first. Because orders sort newest-first, your freshest, most time-sensitive orders are always on top. Build a habit of clearing Pending orders into Processing quickly — a customer who gets a WhatsApp "Processing" message within minutes of ordering trusts you far more than one who hears nothing for hours.

Send the WhatsApp update every time. It costs you one extra tap (the message is already written) and it is the single highest-leverage thing you can do for repeat business. Set the status, let the WhatsApp tab open, press send — every Shipped, Out for Delivery and Delivered message is free, proactive customer service that makes a small store feel premium.

Keep payment status truthful, especially refunds. It is tempting to leave everything "Paid", but recording Refunded and Partially Refunded accurately keeps both your sales reports and your CRM per-contact purchase values honest. A clean ledger today is what lets you trust your numbers when you plan next month.

Tap the address to navigate, the phone to call. The Delivery Address block is already wired: the address opens Google Maps directions and the phone is a tap-to-call link. Hand the phone to your driver and they can route and ring the customer without copying anything by hand — fewer typos, fewer failed deliveries.

Trust the Total — it is server-calculated. The amount in the Total column is recomputed on ScaanMe's servers from your real product prices, variant price differences, delivery fee and any valid coupon, never from the customer's browser. So you can fulfil against it with confidence: a customer cannot have edited a price in their cart to underpay. If a total ever looks off, open the order to see the itemised breakdown.

Where do my store orders appear? In your store editor, open Manage Orders from the left navigation. Every order placed on your public storefront lands there automatically, newest first, with no setup. You do not need email or a separate app — the screen is the live record, and it only ever shows orders for stores you own.

What is the difference between order status and payment status? Order status tracks fulfilment (Pending → Processing → Shipped → Out for Delivery → Delivered, or Cancelled). Payment status tracks the money (Paid, Pending, Processing, Failed, Cancelled, Refunded, Partially Refunded). They are independent — you set each one separately, and updating one never changes the other, so any real-world combination can be represented.

Does the customer get notified when I change the status? Not automatically by the system, but ScaanMe makes it one tap. When you update the order status, a WhatsApp message pre-written for that status (e.g. "has been Shipped") opens with the customer's number filled in — you just press send. If the order has no phone number, the WhatsApp step is skipped and the status still saves.

Can I delete an order? There is no delete; cancelling is how you stop an order from being fulfilled. Set its order status to Cancelled (and its payment status to Cancelled or Refunded if relevant). The record and its invoice stay in your history on purpose — this keeps your books, your invoice numbering and your reporting complete and auditable.

Why is the Total different from what the customer thinks they paid? The Total is recalculated on the server from your real product prices, variant price differences, your configured delivery fee, and any valid coupon — it is never the number the browser submitted. This protects you from cart tampering. If a customer applied an expired or invalid coupon, it is simply ignored and the correct total stands; open the order to see the line-by-line breakdown.

Does placing an order create a contact or a deal in my CRM? It creates (or updates) a contact and logs a "Placed an order" purchase activity worth 60 points — usually enough to mark the buyer HOT — with the order total saved as the purchase value. It does not auto-create a pipeline deal; deals are opened deliberately through the CRM so your kanban stays meaningful. The contact matching is email-first, with phone as a fallback, and never creates duplicates for someone already in your CRM.

What does the invoice number mean, and can I change its prefix? Each order carries an invoice number from a clean, sequential, never-reused counter that is separate from the OD… order ID — this is the number for your accounting. Its prefix defaults to INV- but you can set your own in your store settings, and it then applies to new invoices going forward. Print or download any invoice as a PDF from the order's Invoice action.