This is the last article in a five part series on processing a club batch in Offset Commerce.
We summarized the entire workflow in a webinar on 8/6/24 which can be viewed here!
Table Of contents
After you complete the preparation steps, you are ready to create your Club Batch Order. Creating the Club Batch Order adds the products, Fulfillment Methods, pricing, and members to your shipment. Once these elements are configured you can make any final changes or customizations to your member orders and batch-process all of your members in a single session.
We recommend that you create the batch as close to the processing date as possible. There are certain settings like the Pause Membership Until that should be completed before you create the batch to properly exclude customers from processing. If these settings are updated after the batch is created you will need to update them manually.
IMPORTANT: When you create the Club Batch Order, it will reserve inventory for each of the club levels. For example, if you have 3,000 bottles of 2022 Chardonnay and you create your Club Batch with 3 bottles of 2022 Chardonnay going to each of the 500 members, the system will reserve 1500 bottles so that you can process your Clubs without the wine being sold out from under you. If you go to the Products tab and look up the 2022 Chardonnay, you will see 3000 in the Current Stock, but if you try to place an order or add the product to another batch, you will see a total of 1500 available. This inventory is depleted when the wine is finally sold or released with you close the batch.
A. Creating a New Club Batch Order
Click on the Clubs tab
Click on the elipses ••• next to the right of the Club you want to process
In the dropdown, select New Club Order
Under Club Order Contents, Add the quantities of each product you want to add to the club order by selecting the + next to each product under the QUANTITY column.
You can also enter a value directly in the QUANTITY field
IMPORTANT: Check the Current Stock for each of your products to ensure you have enough inventory to fulfill all your orders.
When you have added all the products to your shipment, review your additions under the Club Order Details
Select the Proceed to Checkout button
Under Step 1 - Adjust Products, modify the QUANTITY as needed
(OPTIONAL) Apply any product-level discounts by updating the product PRICE field to a specific dollar amount
IMPORTANT: See step A-12 if you want to apply the same discount amount to all products.
Under Select default options, choose your default Shipping Method to apply a default to all member orders
IMPORTANT: Members with a Shipping Method preference saved in their Membership > Club Order Details will override the default Shippign Method
(Optional) Set the Ship/Pickup Date and use the date selector to choose a future ship or pickup date for all of your orders.
NOTE: You can adjust the Ship/Pickup Date for individual customers in the upcoming steps. If you don't have an established date, you can leave this field blank.
(Optional) Set your Delivery Status to your desired preference
NOTE: Most clients will choose Not Shipped as the default option
Under Pricing details for this club order set the Discount amount you want to apply to all orders.
Review the product quantities and discounts applied under the Products in this batch heading
(Optional) If for any reason the discount or products in the order are incorrect, select the Actions dropdown in the upper right corner and choose the option to Completely Start Over
IMPORTANT: The Completely Start Over option will erase all of your work and you will need to create the batch all over again. There is no undo.
NOTE: Once the batch setup is complete, your batch will be saved. You can navigate away from the page and come back to resume your batch or edit members by going to the Clubs tab and selecting the Resume Club Order next to the batch you want to edit.
The Resume Club Order button allows you to reopen the batch and resume your work
B. Editing Your Club Orders
Once your batch is created, it is time to assess any special requests and edit the club orders so that the changes will be saved in the order when you process the batch. Special requests for a club can vary, but this would typically include requests like:
Can you add 3 more bottles of Syrah to my order?
Ship to my FL address for the Winter Shipments
Upgrade my shipping to 2nd Day Air during the Summer months
Use the card ending in x4545 for the Fall shipment
Ship my order in cardboard three packs as the customer can't lift more than 10 lbs
We recommend that you keep track of these notes in between shipments in the Club Admin Notes within the customer's club membership so you can easily export them for review or view them within the Club batch. To view the Club Admin Notes, on the Ready tab, under Club Members that will be charged for this batch order... you can identify any customers with notes by the Notes flag underneath the customer name.
The Club Admin Notes flag helps you identify any members with special instructions
To view or edit any orders with notes within the club batch, click on the ellipses to the right of the order you want to edit.
Choose Edit Order
The Club Admin Notes appear at the top of the Club Checkout page and will inform you of what action to take
Adding Bottles Or Additional Items To An Order
To increase the quantity, select enter your desired value in the numerical field under the QUANTITY column.
To add additional items, select the Edit Items button and use the + or - to add or subtract items from their order, then select Proceed to Checkout
Select the green Save Cart for Later button at the bottom of the page to save your changes
Updating An Address Or Shipping Method
To select a different address for this order only, choose an alternate address from the Shipping Address dropdown.
Within the Shipping Address dropdown, you can also add a new address by selecting New Address
To change the type of shipping service for this order, select the dropdown below the Shipping Method column and choose your desired method
IMPORTANT: Changing the Shiping Method or Shipping Address will automatically adjust the shipping costs or change the taxed amount based on your settings or external integrations such as the Shipcompliant Tax API or California BOE API
Select the green Save Cart for Later button at the bottom of the page to save your changes
Updating A Payment Method
To select a different payment for this order only, select an alternate card from the Credit Card dropdown
Within the Credit Card dropdown, you can also add a new card for this order by selecting New Card
Although this is rare If the customer is paying by cash or check, check the box next to Offline / Pay Later
IMPORTANT: All orders marked as Offline / Pay Later must be marked as Paid when the payment is received or they will stay in Unpaid status. Please view the following article for more information on Accepting cash or check payments
Selecting a New Card or Offline / Pay Later for cash or check payments
Select the green Save Cart for Later button at the bottom of the page to save your changes
IMPORTANT: All edits made within the Edit Order window are for this club order only. To change some of these settings for all orders going forward, make sure to change them within the Club Membership.
Special Instructions and Gift Messages
To add or edit the Special Instructions or Gift Messages, select the Edit Notes button
Enter, edit, or delete any information in the Special Instructions or Gift Messages fields and they will export along with the order data so that whoever is fulfilling your orders, can make the necessary adjustments.
NOTE: Whether you are fulfilling in-house or working with a 3rd party fulfillment provider, they need to look for these special instructions. It is also important to know how they will handle them. For example, some fulfillment providers will hold any orders with Special Instructions for approval, so you would want to be aware of this holdup. Some providers include a handwritten note on a card and charge extra if you have a Gift message. Make sure to send over tests and communicate with your fulfillment provider to ensure you are on the same page.
IMPORTANT: Currently, any Club Admin Notes will copy over to the Special Instructions field. If you don't want your fulfillment provider to see these notes, make sure that you delete that info from the Special Instructions field before saving.
Manual Exclusions
Any non-paused order will queue up in the Ready tab, while any membership Paused before the batch is created will send the order to the Excluded tab.
Image of the Ready tab in the Club Processing Batch
Image of the Excluded tab and Pause Until Date in the Club Processing Batch
If there are members who have memberships that were paused after the batch was created, or you get any last-minute requests, you will need to manually move them from the Ready tab to the Excluded tab. Any order in the Excluded tab will NOT be processed with the batch.
To move a member from the Ready tab to the Excluded tab, select the checkbox(es) to the left of the order(s)
Select the Choose an action ... dropdown
Choose the option to Exclude selected customers from this batch order
Click OK
Click the Excluded tab to confirm the member order was excluded
If there is a member on the Excluded tab, and you want to move them back to the Ready tab, you can simply move them back.
Select the Excluded tab
Select the checkbox(es) to the left of the order(s)
Select the Choose an action ... dropdown
Choose the option to Restore selected customers in this batch order
Click OK
Click the Ready tab to confirm the member order is ready for processing
C. Batch Processing Your Club Orders
Now that you have completed your preparation, it is time to process the Club Batch. This is the process where the system will attempt to charge all the orders in the Ready tab. This process can take some time to complete and varies by the number of member orders in your ready tab. You will repeat this process for each Club level.
Testing With Individual Orders
Before you run the entire batch, you should test with a Pickup and a Shipping Order to make sure that everything is processing as expected. You can use the Edit Order view on the Ready tab to make sure that the package is set up correctly, but there is no substitute for testing a few live orders. If there is a problem with one or two orders, it is much easier to fix than having to edit or cancel an entire batch.
Open the batch and go to the Ready tab
Select the checkbox to the left of a Pickup and/or Shipping order
Select the Choose an action ... dropdown
Choose the option to Charge and process orders for selected customers
Click OK
Select the Completed tab to view your successfully processed orders
You can also navigate to the Orders page and view your orders
Check to make sure that the orders are processed as expected
Review that the products are correct, the tax is calculated, the shipping charges are correct, etc.
NOTE: All successful orders will move to the completed tab. Declines will remain on the ready tab and highlighted in red with a declined message. If your test order declines, choose another customer and try again.
Processing the Batch
With your test orders looking good, it is time to process the remaining orders.
Select the I'm Ready to Begin Button
Select the "Batch Process All "Ready" Orders button
The batch will begin processing and the progress bar will estimate the time until completion
A green banner will pop up telling you how many orders were processed
You can view all the successfully processed orders on the Completed tab
D. Processing Declined Club Orders in the Batch
No matter how well you prepare, it seems like there will always be some declined credit cards. The percentage of declines varies, so keep track of your declines and try to increase your preparation efforts to reduce this number over time.
Saving a Record of Your Declines
To save a record of your declines select the Actions dropdown, and choose the Export Exceptions CSV. Save a copy of this document for your records.
Sending Out A Mass Club Decline Email
There are many ways you can reach out to your customers and obtain a new card. You can send them an individual email, you can call or text them on the phone or you can send out a mass marketing email for all your declines. You may need to reach out using all these methods, but a mass email can save you some time.
To send out a mass marketing email for Clubs, please refer to the instructions in article 3. Sending Out A Club Reminder Email In Campaign Monitor. For an easy way to tag your declined members, you can use the same Export Exceptions file.
To download a fresh copy, select the Actions dropdown
Choose Export Exceptions CSV.
Copy the data from Column B (customer_id) into the id column of a tag import file
Enter, for example, "2024FALLDECLINES" in the tag column and copy the data down to each of the IDs.
Repeat this process for each club
Selecting the New Card and Re-Processing the Order
If you want to try a different saved card, or you have obtained and entered the new card into your customer's club membership you can update the card on the order and attempt to re-process. The declined card message will appear on the ready tab with a red message below the order as pictured below.
To select or change the updated Payment Method:
Click the elipses ••• to the right of the declined order
Choose Edit Order
Select an alternate card from the Credit Card
Within the Credit Card dropdown, you can also add a new card for this order by selecting New Card
At the bottom of the screen, choose Process Order Now
NOTE: If you want to batch re-process, you can choose Save Cart for Later and then re-process the batch all at once.
If the declined card was successfully processed, the order will move from Ready to Completed
Repeat this process for all declined
Closing the Batch
After you have exhausted all your efforts to charge declined cards and you are ready to move on, we recommend closing out the batch. This will free up any reserved inventory and start you off with a clean slate for the next cycle.
On the Clubs page, select Resume Club Order for the batch you are going to close
Go to the Actions dropdown
(Optional) Select the Export Exceptions CSV if you want to retain a copy of the members you were not able to recover
Choose CURRENT BATCH > I'm Completely Done
Click OK
You will see a green Completed banner and all outstanding orders will be erased and you can start fresh with a new batch.