Order status "Pending" missing

[anniemacbee]

Hello,

I am using VM 3.10.0 and Joomla 3.4.4

I have the following order statuses in the configuration:

Pending
Confirmed
Cancelled
Refunded
Shipped

In the checkout settings at Default order status for invoice the field Pending is missing in the dropdown. Check out works fine, but status on the invoice is Pending. As I cannot set Pending as default for invoices (because it's not on the dropdown list of order statuses), neither I as vendor, nor customers receive notification (it's missing from the email options too) or an invoice. Can you please advise how I can fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Anne

[jenkinhill]

Pending as a status to send emails/invoices was removed from VM round about version 3.0.6 as it's used for orders that have not yet been paid for, eg when a shopper goes to Paypal the order is pending, and once they have completed the payment the order becomes confirmed and that should be the status returned to VM.  Pending exists as an order status as a product may be removed from stock unless the order is not confirmed, when it should be returned.

Your payment plugins should return Confirmed or Confirmed by Shopper to VM after payment is made.

[anniemacbee]

Thanks jenkinhill, that helps a lot.

I think then the problem lies with the payment plugins. Most of my customers pay with iDEAL or on receipt of the invoice by bank transfer. Check out works perfectly and orders are coming in. It would appear that the status is not updated when payment has been processed. It is quite a hassle because I have to keep checking the admin pages to see if any orders have come in. Can you advise on what I can do to address this?

Thanks,

Anne

[Milbo]

There you see the reasons we have this.

There are payments, which are checked by the vendor manually, for example Banktransfer. Then the order status is "confirmed by shopper" and you have to check manually for the payment and change the order status manually.
The other payment type is cash on delivery, then you set the order status directly from "confirmed by shopper" to "shipped".
In case of iDeal it should work so. The order is on pending as long the customer did not agreed to pay via iDeal. If he agreed, the order is set to "confirmed by shopper", when the real payment is finished by iDeal, then iDeal must update the order and set the order status to payed.

[Milbo]

http://docs.virtuemart.net/manual/general-concepts/220-orders.html

[jimleeder123]

Best to just ignore the pending status really and not send out any e-mails or invoices at that stage. In real life you'd never make an invoice at pending stage, only when confirmed.

[Milbo]

right, depends also on your accounting. When you must do accrual accounting, then you must create the invoice on "confirmed by shopper"

[anniemacbee]

Thanks guys, I get all that.

Since the last upgrade I have been receiving erratic notifications - and today I almost missed an order because after payment the status does not automatically change to either "confirmed by customer" or "confirmed". I have checked the database. Instead of having one row with the details of the order id, order status and the invoice number, an additional row is created with a 0 order id, and the invoice number twice plus status. It looks like this: (see attachment).

I have no notification from customers of issues they may be having, thankfully, and payment is processed as usual. So it's just the status thaing that's giving me headaches.

I would be happy with any help.