One of our customers needed a simple way to hold orders for approval, not allowing payment, until his team revises the order. One of the requirements was that only orders containing specific products would need to get approved, and the others should go through the payment as usual.
Several plugins were tried and all of them were way too much complicated to set up, had a workflow (including emails) that was not very friendly, or messed up the regular workflow for orders not needing approval.
We decided to put ourselves to work and developed this new hassle-free solution for WooCommerce orders approval before payment.
The plugin has a very simple configuration screen, allowing orders to be set for approval if they match very simple rules:
- All orders;
- Per customer country or state;
- Per shipping zone of destination;
- Per products categories;
- Per specific products;
- Per products on backorder;
Developers can also use a hook to set their own rules if the cart does not fall into any of the rules made available by the plugin.
After you set up the approval rules, the workflow is as simple as possible:
- If the cart does not meet the rules for needing approval, the payment methods are shown on the checkout, as always, and the WooCommerce workflow is not affected.
- If the cart needs approval the payment methods are not shown, the order is set to the “Needs approval” custom status immediately after checkout, and both the customer and the shop administrator get a notification email.
- The shop manager or administrator checks the order and approves it by changing it to the “Approved” status. The customer gets an email informing the order can now be paid, including a link to choose the payment method.
- After payment, the regular WooCommerce workflow resumes.
Possible scenarios for WooCommerce order pre-approval:
- Category of products that can only be sold if the customer meets some criteria, for example:
- Prescription drugs only if the customer has a valid doctor’s prescription;
- Guns and ammunition only if the customer has a valid permit;
- Alcoholic beverages only for those over a certain age;
- Needing to get a shipping quote for some shipping zones, before allowing payment;
- Checking stock with suppliers for products on backorder;
Special launch discount:
We’re offering a 70% discount, for life. This special discount will be taken offline when we decide to, without announcement, so don’t let it happen before you take the opportunity.