How can I take orders without taking payment?

I sell services to schools in the UK and its extremely rare that a school will pay for a service with a credit card or PayPal. I like the products page and Squarespace but the inability to automate bookings is holding my business back.

Most UK schools request an invoice before making a BACS payment. How can I take orders/bookings for my services without charging or by bypassing checkout? I have seen the work around for charging services for free but this will cause confusion and I certainly don't want schools receiving invoices suggesting they don't have to pay. Any solutions? Anything being worked on?

I'd love to be able to process payments like a shop but that's just not the way the education sector does things and that won't be changing anytime soon. Any help regarding this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Antony

The URL of your site will help provide context for us and help us to see the issue and the template being used. For example, are you selling a single product or hundreds of products? Are you selling to schools only, or are they just one of the sectors that you supply, and other sectors pay online?

Hi @Paul2009 ,

Thanks for looking into this.

www.hyetteducation.com/stem-computing-workshops . I sell different services with usually one or two variants based on the length of time schools would like to book. I sell all of my workshops services to the Education sector and this aspect of the website is aimed directly at teachers and school leaders.

Kind regards,

Antony

Hi @Paul2009 ,

Thanks for looking into this.

www.hyetteducation.com/stem-computing-workshops . I sell different services with usually one or two variants based on the length of time schools would like to book. I sell all of my workshops services to the Education sector and this aspect of the website is aimed directly at teachers and school leaders.

Kind regards,

Antony

Squarespace doesn't offer any manual processing of invoices so (as you probably do now) you'll need an external invoicing package for these transactions.

In terms of "automating bookings" there are a few things you could try.

• Offer CTAs specific to these organisations, such as a "Paying with a Purchase Order?" button

• Use Acuity Scheduling to allow them to book the session in your calendar without paying. This way they will have committed to a date and the invoicing can be done manually afterwards.

Thanks @Paul2009 . Your first suggestion is something I'd like to do but can't workout. I want customers to put their items in the basket and be able to send their order to me without using checkout. I know (based on reading in this forum) that the checkout page itself can't be edited so even though I like your suggestion to add a button, I do not know how to implement it.

I would rather avoid using a scheduler as I might be free, but the kit that i need to deliver may not be and it could cause problems.

It feels at this point that Squarespace doesn't have a good solution for a business like mine.

Thank you for the support.

Kind regards,

Antony

On 7/9/2019 at 1:02 AM, paul2009 said:

Squarespace doesn't offer any manual processing of invoices so (as you probably do now) you'll need an external invoicing package for these transactions.

In terms of "automating bookings" there are a few things you could try.

• Offer CTAs specific to these organisations, such as a "Paying with a Purchase Order?" button

• Use Acuity Scheduling to allow them to book the session in your calendar without paying. This way they will have committed to a date and the invoicing can be done manually afterwards.

@Paul2009 what do you mean "Offer CTAs specific to these organisations, such as a "Paying with a Purchase Order?" button"?

What are the steps to set a up a button that would allow the client to submit the order without having to make an online payment? 

Our business is international with multiple currencies and complex shipping considerations to calculate offline. We want our clients to select products and submit a PURCHASE ORDER to us for offline service. 

5 minutes ago, JPierre said:

What are the steps to set a up a button that would allow the client to submit the order without having to make an online payment? 

It will depend on your business. Can you share a URL of your site so that I can understand the context? Or do you have an example of another site that works the way that you want?

Thanks @paul2009 

https://www.provocateur-art.com/ - I just made it live now so you can take a look. We just started setting up the hierarchy of pages and populating the content - so its pretty bare bones but the functionality is there. 

The business model: We make framed artwork. All orders are made to order. We have distributors world wide who handle the front end discussion with our clients after a Purchase Order is received. The distributors will negotiate terms of sales, shipping arrangements and multi-currency pricing with the client off-line.

We need the website to function as a means for the customer to gather product information and submit wish lists to us

49 minutes ago, JPierre said:

external invoicing package for these transactions

Hi again @paul2009

Do u have any examples of an external invoicing package? I appreciate any insight or ideas you might have.

Alternatively I see that Squarespace Scheduling offers for an additional fee: "Do not accept payment online Clients can’t pay during booking, but you can charge them from the Scheduling panel. " https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039291732-Managing-payments-in-Scheduling

$14/month is a pretty expensive way to disengage from an otherwise mandatory checkout function.

I'm also having the same issue.  I own a market farm and I'm trying create an online store for ordering produce each week to be picked up at our farm.  The problem is many of our customers like to pay with cash or check.  I really want to bypass the paypal option and allow the order to be submitted so we can get away from email orders and take advantage of stock count down and streamline ordering.  I'm afraid I'll have to stop using Squarespace if I can't figure it out.  Any suggestions?  My URL is 4SeasonFarms.com/available-produce.  Thanks

I'm following this thread too. My clients are not likely to pay online, they will pay via invoice. Because of this, the PRODUCTS functionality is not of any use for me. According to Squarespace the PRODUCTS feature assumes an online transaction will take place. 

Squarespace please come up with a solution!

@MarieMF - How do you work around that?  Are you doing it through email?  I've been thinking about either finding another platform all together, or attaching a link that would take them to a functioning order option.  I'm pretty disappointed in the product platform on Squarespace.  I built all of my products and realized that it forced shipping and didn't allow me to change the category, so I had to rebuild everything as a service.  The other frustration is SS requires a billing address, even though the only payment option I have is paypal.  It's unnecessary.  I also can't see the Venmo option anywhere.  I'm getting close to quitting Squarespace.  

I echo 4SeasonFarms....building a simple online Farmers Market and just want to do a cash option to streamline the checkout. 

Also have the ability to make multiple checkout forms would be helpful....ie I have two different commerce pages that require two different custom checkout forms. 

Thanks

Following this thread...and also hoping that Squarespace will come up with something here!

With being forced to close my small shop, I want to have an online order form that the customer can submit. Because I have regular (in shop, not online) customers who know what they like, I'd love to have an easy order form where all products are listed...rather than making them navigate my website.  I'm *trying* to make the crossover easy for them. 

Squarespace's forms that can be added to products are brilliant...but I want just the form part, that can be submitted to me without payment.  

Come on Squarespace!! You're brilliant - help us out!

On 7/8/2019 at 9:51 AM, antonyhyett said:

I sell services to schools in the UK and its extremely rare that a school will pay for a service with a credit card or PayPal. I like the products page and Squarespace but the inability to automate bookings is holding my business back.

Most UK schools request an invoice before making a BACS payment. How can I take orders/bookings for my services without charging or by bypassing checkout? I have seen the work around for charging services for free but this will cause confusion and I certainly don't want schools receiving invoices suggesting they don't have to pay. Any solutions? Anything being worked on?

I'd love to be able to process payments like a shop but that's just not the way the education sector does things and that won't be changing anytime soon. Any help regarding this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Antony

You can probable use another cart that offers the solution to your problem.

Following this thread as well in hopes that a solution will come soon! 

We are a grocery cooperative and want to expand our online services to EBT/Snap users in order to get food to our most vulnerable communities. URL is mandelagrocery.coop/order

You can integrate Freshbooks, or a combination of Wufoo and Freshbooks. There's a higher cost involved, you are essentially taking your invoice and cart functions to other, more focused platforms with your main content remaining on SQS. 

I'm also looking for an option to bypass the PayPal / online payment option. An option for the client to send us the details of their order / cart and pay us offline is exactly what I'm looking for too. 

I have the same problem, I can not even put the prcies in the currency of my country, Chile. It has no option for it!!

Same problem here, I made a restaurant website and I can't offer pick-up in store option with cash payment (people here in Italy prefer to pay with cash mostly). Can you do something about this Squarespace? This should be a basic function by now... Thanks.

Hi Everybody,

Same problem here...

I try to create a Click & Collect module for my restaurant in France and I want my customers to have the choice between paying online or direct at my restaurant's doors.
But, I may found a simple solution to avoid oneline payments for Stripe users (only). It cans help until Squarespace offer a better solution.

=> In the "payments " page, enable the "test mode". Once enable, no payment will be ask when you finalise the checkout.

Then, just edit a comment to explain to your customers that payement will be made on site via cash, check or credit card.

Sorry for my English...Not perfect :-)

https://support.squarespace.com/hc/fr-fr/articles/205811368

Bert.

Hello, I wondered if anyone has used the Shopify Buy button as a way around this? I've been doing some reading online and apparently it can be setup with a cash payment method and the button can then be added to the squarspace product pages? It seems like a crazy workaround and I haven't got my head around it properly yet, but I would be keen to know if this could be a suitable solution or not?

Thanks, D. (ps - i'm new to all this so apologies if it's not a legitimate option!)

14 minutes ago, DTB007 said:

Hello, I wondered if anyone has used the Shopify Buy button as a way around this?

Yes, and I’ve written a couple of guides about doing this:

Can I use a different payment processor with Squarespace?

How to add afterpay or Klarna to Squarespace (using Shopify Buy Buttons)

Bear in mind that this can work well for a very small inventory, but if you have a lot of inventory, you’ll soon get tired of using two platforms.

If you don’t need to manage inventory, you may also be interested in the wishlist extension that we sell. This allows customers to submit their cart to you without taking payment.

I'm new to Squarespace and have a site in progress for my language business. Trying to figure out if an online service store will work. On our old/current site, we use the Teachworks platform as a form builder and follow up with an invoice from this same platform. Teachworks integrates with Stripe and Zapier and we use it to track all of our students and tutors (invoicing, hours taught/taken etc.). I love the online service store idea and am fine using Squarespace's e-commerce to get immediate payments when customers check out. I  would add a custom form so that when they do check out for, say, a 20 hour Spanish course, I can collect their info (contact, custom questions, etc.) and am just not clear on where their info goes and whether I will be able to have it automatically sent to TeachWorks or if I'll have to manually enter each new student into Teachworks whenever they make a purchase. In addition, when we hopefully reopen our brick-and-mortar center, some people might wish to register on the Squarespeace site but pay in person with a check or cash. 

Any guidance from those with similar businesses or from Squarespace experts more than welcome. The launch of the new Squarespace site for my speaklanguagecenter.com is being delayed by the decision of whether to keep things the same (simple "register now" button leading to a Teachworks form and no payment until invoiced later) or take the leap to an online service store. I kind of wish it were possible to simply copy the DESIGN of the online store (products in a grid) without having to use the e-commerce feature. It would make a great template to have the grid and features (i.e. click on an "item" and get the pop-up window with all of the details, register) that would be so great!