Blocking Unpaid Dispatch
Prop houses that collect payment before goods leave the building can stop an
unpaid order from being dispatched. Turn on Block Unpaid Order Dispatch? in your
Order Settings.
With the setting on, an order cannot be moved to "On Memo / On Spec" or "Rented Out" status while it is unpaid, from anywhere in the Dashboard. Whoever tries is shown a Payment Required message instead, and the status does not change.
What counts as unpaid
All five of these must be true for an order to be blocked:
- The order is a rental type: "Sales & Rentals", "Rentals Only", "Extended Rental" or "On Spec Rental"
- Its amount is greater than zero
- Its status is one that can be invoiced (all statuses except Draft, On Hold, Unscheduled and Canceled)
- It has an invoice, and that invoice is due today or earlier
- Its invoice is not in "Paid" status
The order's own Terms are not part of the test. What matters is the due date the
invoice actually carries, so an account left on "Due on Receipt" terms is not
blocked while its invoice is still dated in the future, and an invoice on "Net 30"
terms is blocked once its due date arrives.
The due date is a deadline, not a grace day
An invoice due today is payable today, so goods do not leave against it unpaid today. An order on an invoice due today is blocked; an order on an invoice due tomorrow is not.
This is what makes "Due on Receipt" work without being a special case. Receipt is today, and a "Due on Receipt" invoice is dated the day you raise it, so an order invoiced at the counter is due that day and blocked that day until it is paid.
An order with no invoice is never blocked
If you invoice a batch of orders after pickup, the orders leave the building before anything has been billed for them. Those orders are not blocked, because nothing is owed yet.
"Paid" here means the invoice status, not the balance. An invoice left in "Draft" status never reads "Paid" even when it has been paid in full, so its orders stay blocked. See Invoice Statuses for why, and for the one-step fix.
Two ways to release an order
Log the payment. Once the invoice reaches "Paid" status, every order on it is released.
Move the due date out. A due date later than today takes the order out of scope of the block.
Once an order has been invoiced, its own Terms field is locked. Change the due
date, or Terms, on the invoice instead — both are copied down to every order
on that invoice. You do not need to revert the invoice to "Draft", and you should
never delete it.
The warning message
Separately from the setting, an order that meets the conditions above displays this on the order screen:
This order is not fully paid and payment on its invoice is due. Add a payment, or change the due date on its invoice.
This message appears whether or not Block Unpaid Order Dispatch? is turned on,
because it is useful to know either way. Turning the setting off stops the block;
it does not hide the message.
The message is refreshed when the order changes, so it can lag behind: an order whose invoice became due since it was last updated may not show it yet. The block does not wait for the message. It checks the invoice at the moment you change the status, so an order can be blocked before its message appears.
The message follows the order's current status, so it does not appear on orders in "Draft", "On Hold", "Unscheduled", or "Canceled" status. The block itself still applies if you move one of those orders straight to "Rented Out".
Recording why the terms changed
If you want a reason captured whenever somebody changes an order's terms, turn on
Require Terms Change Reason? in your
Invoice Settings. A required text
box then appears under Terms whenever the value changes, on both an order's
Billing tab and an invoice.
The reason is written to the Activity tab of the record you changed, alongside who changed the terms and when. Once an order is invoiced, its terms are changed on the invoice, so the reason goes to the invoice's Activity tab, not the order's. It is not shown on the Billing tab.