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