Orders are created when a customer completes the checkout process, and they are visible to users with Admin and Shop Manager roles only. Each order is given a unique Order ID. However, Order Statuses can be configured. Below are the default status for an order on your website.
Why order statuses are important
Order statuses let you know how far along the order is, starting with “Pending payment” and ending with “Completed.”
The following order statuses are used:
- Pending payment — Order received, no payment initiated. Awaiting payment (unpaid).
- Failed — Payment failed or was declined (unpaid) or requires authentication. Note that this status may not show immediately and instead show as Pending until verified (e.g., Credit Card payments).
- Processing — Payment received (paid) and stock has been reduced; order is awaiting fulfillment. All product orders require processing, except those that only contain products which are both Virtual and Downloadable.
- Completed — Order fulfilled and complete – requires no further action.
- On hold — Awaiting payment – stock is reduced, but you need to confirm payment.
- Canceled — Canceled by an admin or the customer – stock is increased, no further action required.
- Refunded — Refunded by an admin – no further action required.
- Authentication required — Awaiting action by the customer to authenticate the transaction and/or complete approval requirements.
When are order statuses used?
When a client placed an order, an order status is immediately assigned based on the “payment options” they selected at checkout.
If the client chose an offline payment method, your order status may default to “pending payment” or “on hold”. Both means, you need to receive evidence of payment BEFORE updating the order status OR processing the client order.
When a client paces an order using an online payment method, such as “credit card”, the payment processing system will confirm whether or not the funds have been debited from the credit card and paid into your account with the local payment gateway.
If the payment was successful, your website will mark this order status as “processing” or “complete”. If it was unsuccessful, to may mark it as “pending payment” or “failed”.
Usually, orders are not defaulted to “complete” status. However, “complete” status means you have finished processing the order, the item has been either delivered or performed in full.
Some integrations will also update your order statuses.
Understanding Order Statuses in Relation to your local payment gateway
| STATUS | DESCRIPTION | PAYMENT GATEWAY COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|
| ON HOLD | Awaiting payment – stock is reduced, but you need to confirm payment | Usually seen with payment methods when you need to manually confirm, such as BACS (bank transfer) or cheque. You’ll also see this when the gateway is set to authorize instead of capture a charge: the shop owner will need to manually switch the status to processing. |
| PENDING | Order received (unpaid). | Most gateways will report back and set the order status to Processing (payment successful) or Failed (payment unsuccessful). If the shop never receives either signal, it keeps the status on Pending. This tends to be a misconfiguration of payment notification URLs or a plugin conflict. |
| PROCESSING | Payment received and stock has been reduced- the order is awaiting fulfillment. All product orders require processing. | If the payment has been successful and the order does not contain Digital or Downloadable products, the order will be set to Processing. This is the shop owner or warehouse’s cue to ship the order (or begin work on the service) and manually mark it as completed when through. |
| COMPLETED | Order fulfilled and complete – requires no further action | These generally aren’t interesting because everything has gone correctly. |
| FAILED | Payment failed or was declined (unpaid). | The order can be manually canceled, but this status can come up if the payment window has expired. It can happen for a few reasons: order was abandoned before payment was completeThe hold stock window expired without a responseSame reasons as Pending |
| AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED | Customer must complete requirements for SCA. | It can occur when: a new customer makes a purchase or an existing subscription renews You may never see this status given the local payment gateway setup currently. |
