Stock Monitoring on PSP Pending Orders

[pl1]

Hi,

We have just upgraded to v8 (from v6) and have noticed that orders received without payment i.e. those which go into the 'PSP Pending' section are adjusting the stock levels. How do we stop this from happening? We only want the stock levels to be reduced when a valid payment has been received for an order.


Thank you.

[Krithika]

Hello

Please see this related thread and let me know if it helped.

[pl1]

Thanks for that, I have read the related thread. Although I now understand the logic which is in place, I feel that this is over simplifying the process. I believe that there are distinct differences in the payment methods which should be handled differently within Actinic.

A PSP payment is an indication that the customer has the intention of paying for the order there and then. Whether payment is deferred in the PSP is irrelevant, this is a business decision rather than a customer decision. The intention of committing the funds is present. If, for whatever reason, the payment fails (insuffient funds etc...) then it is often the case that the customer will attempt to purchase using an alternative card or PSP payment method. It is still the same order in the eyes of the customer, but within Actinic it becomes 2 seperate orders. Alternatively, if the customer's payment fails and they contact the shop to complete the order, it is only when the shop are able to take payment against that order that the stock should be reserved for that customer. Surely it is only the order upon which cleared payment is received that should trigger the stock level reduction.

A non-PSP payment, I believe, shows an equal level of commitment as a successful PSP payment, albeit with an additional stage in the payment process i.e. posting the cheque etc... However, with this method, the stock levels should still be reduced as the order is retrieved as stock must be reserved in preparation for the arrival of the payment (this differs from a failed PSP payment as the failed PSP payment is a 'one-shot' attempt at transferring the funds and reserving the stock, any subsequent attempt at payment are done so against a new order and have no bearing on the previous failed order/payment attempt). If the non-PSP payment method fails i.e. the customer doesn't write or post the cheque, then the order should be cancelled and the stock levels increased, releasing the previously reserved item(s).

Might it be an idea to have the facility within Actinic to, against each payment method, set the trigger point for stock level reduction (i.e. order received, payment received, shipped). This would allow for additional flexibility within the stock monitoring process rather than the current, rather inflexible solution of 'stock WILL be reduced regardless of whether payment can ever be received against this order or not'.

Thoughts/comments anyone?

[Mike Hughes]

I think being able to define under which conditions stock is reserved could be useful. The reason is that it all depends on each users preference as to what they view as best. i.e. Would they rather have an order which they can't fulfil or a potential lost order because an item is temporarily marked as unavailable?

For me it's more important to avoid orders that can't be fulfilled, but I wouldn't be surprised if we all have different preferences.

The PSP pending issue isn't quite as straightforward as you suggest. I had an order this morning that came in as psp-pending and sent out my usual 'we received this order but no payment was received' email and the customer phoned up 10 minutes later and gave me the payment details over the phone. So a PSP payment order isn't really a one-shot success/fail decision.

Mike