Online Order Form — Processing Orders

Overview

When a customer submits an order through your online order form, it lands in Online → Orders Received. From there you link it to a customer and turn it into a Puree quote — either in one click with Quick Create, or by opening the full order editor to make changes first.

What the Customer Does at Checkout

Once the customer has added items and clicked through to checkout, they enter their details: first and last name, company name if they have one, address and postcode, email address and phone number. There's also a Your reference or Purchase Order field, which is useful for corporate customers who need a PO number on the invoice. Whatever they enter carries through to the quote as the customer reference.

They then choose how they intend to pay, from the methods you've enabled on that order form. What they see depends on how many you allow:

• More than one method — they pick from cards labelled Invoiced, Pay in advance and pay by card, then press Confirm order
• One method only — it's selected silently with a line of explanatory text, so there's nothing extra for them to do
• Card only — there's no choice to make, and the button reads Continue to Payment and sends them straight to Stripe

See Online Order Form — Payment Methods for how to configure which methods are offered.

What the Customer Sees After Submitting

The confirmation page is deliberately non-committal. It reads "Your order is being confirmed" and tells the customer their order has been received and your team will review the details shortly. It does not tell them the order is locked in.

That wording matters: it leaves you free to check availability before you commit. If you're fully booked that day, or an item they've chosen isn't something you can make, nothing has been promised.

Customers who chose to be invoiced or to pay in advance are also told that once you've confirmed availability you'll prepare a quote including delivery charges and terms, and to watch their inbox for it. Customers who chose card payment instead see a note about completing payment if they weren't redirected to Stripe.

Notification Emails

When an order comes in, Puree sends an Online order received email with the customer or company name and the order reference in the subject line. Who receives it — you, the customer, or both — is set per notification type under Settings → Email Settings, so you can add a shared inbox, copy in a second address, or keep the email internal only. See Email Settings.

Finding New Orders

Go to Online → Orders Received. The page has a New tab and a Processed tab, each with a count beside it, so you can see at a glance how many orders are waiting. New orders sit in the New tab until you've turned them into a quote.

Linking a Customer

Open an order and you'll see everything the customer submitted alongside a Link to Puree Customer panel. An order has to be linked to a customer before it can be processed.

Puree tries to do this for you. If the email address on the order matches a contact you already have, that customer is selected automatically and their default contact and delivery address are filled in — so a repeat customer usually needs no work at all.

If the email doesn't match anyone, click New Customer in that panel. The customer form opens with the details from the order already carried across — name, company, email, phone and address — so you just save it. There's no need to leave the page and set the customer up separately first.

The Two Processing Options

Quick Create Order

Quick Create converts the online order into a Puree order in a single click. It applies your default terms and conditions and introduction commentary from the order form's settings, then takes you straight to the order — no editing step.

Use it when the order looks right as submitted and you don't need to change anything.

Link Customer and Edit Order

This links the customer and then opens the full order editor. Everything carries across — the customer's details, delivery date and times, their purchase order reference, the items and quantities they chose, and your default introduction commentary — so you're adjusting an order that's already built rather than typing one from scratch.

Use it when you need to change a quantity, adjust prices, add commentary, edit delivery details, or apply a different terms and conditions template before the order is created.

If the order form has no default terms and conditions set, this is the only route available and the button is labelled Link Customer and Create Order. It behaves the same way — you'll apply terms yourself in the editor.

Sending the Quote

Processing the order gives you a quote in pending state. The next step is to send it to the customer for acceptance — a short covering note such as "Thanks for your online order, please press the accept button" works well.

This is worth doing rather than skipping. An accepted quote is a far more formal agreement than a submitted web form: it carries your terms and conditions and your payment terms, and the customer has actively agreed to them. Once they accept, the quote moves to accepted.

Stripe-Paid Orders

If the customer paid by card through Stripe, the order still arrives in the New tab and you still process it the same way — link a customer and use Quick Create or the editor.

The difference comes at the end. Because the money has already been taken, Puree accepts the quote for you as soon as you process it, so it skips pending and lands directly in accepted. That happens whichever of the two options you use.

An accepted quote can still be changed if you need to — it's just an extra step, and any difference in value has to be settled with the customer separately. See Online Order Form — Payment Methods for more on configuring payment methods.

Setting Up Default Terms & Conditions

To enable Quick Create on an order form:

1. Go to Online → Order Forms and open the form you want to configure
2. Open Settings
3. Under Default Terms & Conditions, select the template to apply to orders from this form
4. Save your settings

Once a default is set, the Quick Create button will appear on all incoming orders from that form. You can also set a default introduction commentary template in the same section — this is added automatically to the order when Quick Create is used. Using wording specific to online orders, such as "Thanks for your online order", saves editing every quote by hand.

Terms and conditions templates are managed under Settings → Terms & Conditions. See Terms & Conditions for details on creating and managing templates.