Joe,

How would that work if the order turned out to NOT be fraudulent? Let's say you had 2 of an item in stock. An order arrives for 2 but it marked on hold. Then another shopper places an order for 1 that is accepted right away. Later you determine that the original order was not fraudulent. So, you only have 1 in stock to fulfill the original order even though it was placed first.

So, unless you get immediate payment by CC you want to review orders before pulling items out of stock. For CC orders you want to pull stock because you've already authorized the card, correct?

Not almost.... An order is always a 'pending' condition and is why "Purchase Order" isn't a form of payment. Terminology gets really muddy in this forum sometimes...

Can we all agree that an 'ORDER' is a request for goods and should have no effect on gross sales, profit, costs or inventory? A 'SALE' is a completed transfer of funds (or receipt of the promise to pay as in a house account or cc) and trips inventory because the product has only then been promised to the buyer - the contract has only then been executed. Satisfaction of the contract is when the product is shipped and then the sale is marked "complete". Joe need to control this stuff when the "check is in the mail". As it is, an 'order' and 'sale' seem to be the same thing in the admin. The 'order' is not the contract.

Also, is there any way to change the date of the 'order' to the date of the 'sale' once it's change in status has been made? I consider the date of the sale to be the date the 'order' becomes a 'sale', not the date the order arrives. No change in date is called for if the purchaser has an open (house) account for the same reason we don't need the date to change to the date that funds are actually received from Authorize.net.

Who gets dibbs on short inventory should be based on the date of the sale, not the date of the order.

I have a client (who is on pre-pay status) who hammers at me about late shipments even though his bookkeeper sends a check 45 to 60 days after the PO arrives, at which time I release the goods. I'd like to change the date of the order to the date of the arrival of the check (the actual sale date) via a better "On Hold" control.

Yes, as I said at the top of my second paragraph.

What we need is the ability to use, or not use, POs or checks as a trip for inventory at the direction of the merchant... Joe's first concern.

Another cart treats PO's and checks much the same as CCs. A PO or check is 'authorized' and then 'captured'. This makes sense as the merchant now controls when the order is logged as a sale and when inventory is tripped.

Trusted clients with a PO can be treated differently (authorize and capture) than Mrs. Anybody (just authorize) who just promises to send a check someday.

This is a very interesting discussion. These things are always a slippery slope, because once a merchant gets larger they need something more sophisticated than BV for order processing, inventory, etc. When that happens another software system is brought into play, and it often has its own set of rules. I guess all I'm saying is that BV will never be all things to all people so the more open and flexible it can be, the more it can be easily tailored to each client's needs.