Sending orders to a supplier

An order a customer places on your shop does not go to your supplier. It waits on Supplier orders until you send it.

That is deliberate. A printed order cannot be undone once it is in a press, and the specification came from a shopper rather than from you. The screen exists so there is a moment between the two.

Test mode comes first

A new connection starts in test mode, and the screen says so at the top. Nothing is made and nothing is charged. Send one through, see it behave, then turn real orders on from the supplier’s connect screen.

Once real orders are on, the banner changes to say so. The difference between the two states is the difference between a rehearsal and money.

What is waiting, and why

Orders are grouped by what they need from you.

Ready for you to look at. Nothing is stopping these. Read one and send it.

Waiting on a proof. Your customer has not signed the artwork off yet. You send them a digital proof your own way, in your own words. When they approve it, record that here. The order joins the ready group, with who confirmed it and when written on the order. Proofs are on by default and can be switched off on the supplier’s connect screen.

Need fixing before they can go. Something in the order will not do, and the screen lists what. These cannot be sent until the list is empty.

Sent, and in the printer’s hands. Done with, kept so you can find them again.

If nothing at all is ready, the screen says so rather than showing an empty list. An empty list and a list of things that each want something are not the same situation.

What it tells you before you send

What the order will cost you, and what you make on it. The supplier’s charge against what the customer paid, before VAT. If the two have drifted so far that an order would lose you money, the screen says you lose. It does not show a negative and leave you to notice.

Sometimes the cost is not known yet, and it says that instead of guessing.

Where it is going, including when a customer is collecting rather than having it delivered, since that changes what it costs you.

Whether the artwork is attached. A supplier will usually accept an order with files still to come, and hold it until they arrive. A missing file is still worth knowing about before you send rather than after.

Any note the customer left for the courier, passed on as they wrote it.

Finding one

Search by order number, customer name or product. A shop doing a few orders a day does not need it. A shop doing a few hundred cannot work without it, which is why it is there.

When the supplier says no

Before an order is created, the supplier is asked whether they would accept it. That catches a bad order without making one, which is the whole point of asking first.

If something still goes wrong afterwards, the screen names it plainly:

They cannot print this. The specification will not do. Read what they said, fix it, and put the order back on the list.

They could not take payment. Nothing was made. Sort the payment side out with them and ask them to try again from here.

The artwork did not arrive. Send it again. If you have checked with them and it genuinely never landed, say so here. The order goes back to waiting rather than sitting as sent.

Being sent. It is in flight. Give it a minute rather than pressing again, so one order does not become two.

Anything you have opened can be put back on the list if you would rather deal with it later.

---

Next: health, history and alerts covers being told when a supplier goes quiet, and sell printed products covers the settings that decide what a shopper is quoted in the first place.