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Special orders

How to turn a register sale into a special order

Start a Shopify register sale's note with SPL and the customer's name, and Tideswell makes the special order for you within minutes.

A special order is a job your shop runs for one named customer, covered in What are special orders?. When the customer pays at your Shopify register, a short note on the sale is all it takes. Tideswell reads your register sales every five minutes and turns each noted one into a job on Selling › Special orders.

Your workspace may use its own word for special orders; Settings › Terminology shows both.

Before you start

You need:

Nobody needs a Tideswell permission to make the job: the register sale does it. The people told about it are those with Record payments on special orders and write off balances, which starts at lead.

How do you mark a sale as a special order?

Ring the item up as its own sale and start the first line of the sale's note with SPL, followed by the customer's name. "SPL Smith", "SPL-Smith" and "SPL: Smith" all work, in capitals or not.

  1. At the register, ring up the product the customer is ordering, on its own sale.
  2. Attach the customer to the sale if they are in Shopify.
  3. Add a note whose first line starts with SPL and the customer's name.
  4. Take payment as usual.

Keep SPL as its own word at the start of the note. A note that starts "Splash" is an ordinary sale.

What does Tideswell make from the sale?

Within about five minutes, a new job appears on Selling › Special orders, at the first stage (Quoted, unless your workspace renamed it). Its page reads "Created from register sale" and the order number.

  • The title is the product on the sale. A sale with several lines reads as the first one "and 2 more", for example.
  • The customer is the Shopify customer attached to the sale. With none, it is the name from the note. With neither, it reads "Unknown customer" and the sale number, so attach the customer or write their name every time.
  • The item is the product, its options, SKU, quantity and retail price, when the sale has one line.
  • The money: when the sale was paid in full, the agreed price is what the customer paid after discounts. The sale is linked under Till sales as Linked automatically, so the job owes nothing.

Each register sale makes one job, however often it is read.

What if the sale was not fully paid?

The job is still made, without an agreed price, and its Owed reads Not priced. The notification says why, such as "Only part of this sale was paid at the register. Record what was actually paid by hand."

Open the job, set the Agreed price, and record what the customer paid with Record payment. The steps are in How to take and track a special order.

Who is told, and how?

Everyone with Record payments on special orders and write off balances gets a push notification titled Register special order. It names the note and the item, such as "SPL Smith: Merino quarter-zip, $98.00 paid", and opens the job when tapped.

The push follows each person's Notable order alerts switch and quiet hours, in User menu › Account settings › What buzzes you. See How to control task, stock and order alerts.

What happens if the sale is refunded later?

The same people get a second Register special order push, "Sale #4127 for SPL Smith was refunded, check the special order". It opens the job that holds the sale.

Open the job and correct the money. Unlink takes the till sale off, and Record payment puts in what the customer actually paid.

What happens if you switch the Special orders module off?

Register sales stop becoming special orders, and every existing special order is kept. Switch the module back on and Tideswell carries on from where it stopped, so nothing is lost.

If a noted sale has not appeared after ten minutes, see Why an automation or workflow did not run.

How to take and track a special order

Create a special order for a customer, add what it cost, record what they paid, and move it from quoted to closed.

What are suppliers and purchase orders?

Suppliers are the companies you buy from, and purchase orders track what you have on order with them, from first draft to paid bill.

On this page

Before you startHow do you mark a sale as a special order?What does Tideswell make from the sale?What if the sale was not fully paid?Who is told, and how?What happens if the sale is refunded later?What happens if you switch the Special orders module off?