Feature: Backend Edit Order

[Jason Farmer]

So need this.

We frequently get customers ordering downloadable products, checking out as guests, paying by credit card and mistyping their email address - the order goes through, gets confirmed, and their order sent out. They then get in touch to ask where their order is at which point we spot their mistake, but have no means to fix their order for them, other than editing the record in the database or buying a third party extension

Are we supposed to cancel their order, refund their card and ask them to have another go? If we did that, I'd imagine half would go elsewhere.

This is a bug, the product is missing essential functionality. Let the entire order be editable, with perhaps a config setting to enable order editing. If you're worried about legal cans of worms, then implement a write history on the order, who changed what and when, the order history lends itself to this admirably. This particular legal can of worms has already been opened in any case by the ability to edit the database directly, third party extensions and the ability to delete an order.

[bytelord]

@Jason Farmer
On next big release (probably 2.1) this functionality will be included, order editing.

Regards

[PolishedGeek]

Excellent! What's the rough timetable on that release?

[bytelord]

Before Christmas i suppose, middle-end of December.

[bladerz]

That's good new, bytelord.

I hope with the functionality to change the order there will be the option to change the payment method and also to let the customer complete the payment later. In VM 1 all this works easily.
The reason for this follows. We have clients trying to make the payment by Paypal, but for some reason this doesn't work and then they want to try to pay by credit card. In VM 1 we are just changing the payment method and voila - the client can do the payment easily. Another case is when the client does not have the sufficient funds to complete the payment at the moment. He asks us to wait for a day to fund his account and then returns and completes the payment.

[bytelord]

Hi bladerz,

Not sure about the second one, but i see your point.

Regards

[jux]

Hello I  really need this feature,
I do not understand why so much option that were available in VM1 are not available in VM2.


Do you know when its going to be released?

(ps: dont say im not contributting to the community I have already for 70 euros of plugins (that where available for free in VM1))

Thank you

[Stonedfury]

Has there been any update on this? Would love to be able to fix when a customer screws up and not have to generate a new order.

[jenkinhill]

This is being partially introduced in 2.1 (available for testers soon) so will be in the 2.2 stable release.

As the order represents a contract, in some countries it is not legal to edit an existing order, they have to be cancelled and a new order (ie new contract) made. This is partly why order editing was not included from the start.

[MikeUK]

I just wanted to chip in regarding the legal aspects mentioned.

I have no need (or opinion) regarding whether or not this should be part of VM, other than I wonder if it should in fact be a third party extension. I imagine many will not use this feature and many perhaps would prefer it not be there.

Still, from a legal point of view, I don't think it will make any difference in any country. Unless a shop owner made the database unavailable to them (perhaps access only given to a third party that were fully compliant with the country's security laws) or had traceable database edits set up (again compliant with local data security / privacy laws) then it would be clear that order editing was possible at anytime anyway. Therefore, be able to do this through the admin rather than through the database is simply a matter of convenience rather than a legal one.

[robert]

My 2 cents regarding the issue of not being able to edit or create an order in the backend.

Customers are inherently LAZY and do not want to do the work, so I often have to create the orders for them if I want the sale. With VM2 I cannot do this so I LOSE SALES!

I enjoy the fact that when a user does do the work, this helps me ship and complete the order while allowing them to trigger all the great invoice notification features of VM.

In my case I desperately need to be able to create a custom invoice in the backend so that those notification features work, also I often offer clients services that ARE NOT in the VM system as products and sometimes I offer special one time pricing for a particular order. The LACK of ABILITY to create invoices in the backend is a huge NEGATIVE for VM2.

I understand that changing invoices CREATED by customers could cause issues, but I am NOT against not being able to edit INVOICES created by Logged in users. But what if they make a mistake? If that happens - guess who is responsible for fixing it? 9That would be be IF I  COULD) If I cancel the order and require the user to START OVER - I could potentially lose the sale - NOT very good for the bottom line.

YES! I am aware that Artio offers a "Custom Invoicing" product, but to be straight - I really dont think purchasing the product for every domain I have is fair. I offer niche service sites and manage the backends independently, so it would cost THOUSANDS of dollars using the Artio Solution. Plus, what if Artio goes outta business, the server or whatever system that holds the key for any particular domain could go away and there goes my custom invoicing.

I really think that being able to control invoicing is a CORE feature that VM2 should have and depending on the business model, maybe the ability to create, edit, change or modify invoices can be turned on or off. But at a minimum Creating Invoices should be available.

Hope to see that change soon, so I can work with VM2 in more depth and recommend it to my other clients as a solution.

[amymattian]

Hi,

I recomment using VM Invoice:
http://www.artio.net/virtuemart-tools/vm-invoice-generator

With that you can both add invoices backend and edit invoice/delivery note layout etc. Handy tools!

Greetings,
Anne

[Milbo]

Thanks Amymattian. Interesting tool.

I wanted to add a feature that you can choose addresses of other users, when you are administrator. So that a vendor can go himself through the process and order in the name of another (order acceptance per phone for example).

[Jörgen]

There is already a plugin that can Do this.

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/access-a-security/site-access/authentication-management/12851

What really would be nice is the opportunity to change and edit orders for the customer like in VM 1.1. Returns, and exchanges is nice if they could be documented on the order. As an example:

• the customer ordered a camera adapter but he chose the wrong version and returns the old adapter.
• I delete the old adapter on the order and add the new adapter, then my stock is correct
• I send a new item to the customer together with a corrected order

This can of course be made in a better way.

• Maybe the old order should be cancelled and a new order should be created.
• Single lines has to be cancelled on the old order
• The new order should be created from the old one with a single copy command and then changed to show the new items instead.

The second way, cancelling lines in the old order and creating a new order would be the right way to go. The trick is to do it with a minimum of effort. Other items like payment, shipping e.t.c should also be possible to change.

I haven´t looked at the Artio extension but if it can do this then that would be great.

Only my 2 cent :-)

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[Stonedfury]

Just had to do this through phpAdmin. There are 2 tables to edit but updating an order isn't to hard if you have the information at hand. Would love to see it actually in the backend features though. We get customers that want to add, or remove an item and having them cancel and/or place another order just isn't an option. We use the notes on the order for such legalities. "Customer Blabla Called on bla bla and asked blabla"