Web orders¶
A customer buys on the WooCommerce store. This page follows that order into the POS: what record it becomes, what the fields mean, and what staff do to finish it. Counter staff work these from the Pending Order queue.
How the order arrives¶
WooCommerce sends the order to the POS the moment it is placed, through a
webhook. The POS creates a Woo Online Order record, one per web order, named
WOO-ORD- and a number.
At the same moment the POS soft-reserves stock:
- A per-gun listing carries the serial in its SKU, so that exact Serial No is reserved.
- A listing that covers several identical guns has no serial in it. The POS records a claim on a unit and names no gun, because it cannot know which one staff will pull off the rack. It names one only in the single case where exactly one gun is free, this order has spent nothing yet and no other order holds an unnamed claim — with one candidate there is nothing to choose between.
- A non-firearm line records the line only. Nothing is reserved.
- When no free serial exists at all, the line records a reservation error for staff to sort out.
The reservation is pushed back to WooCommerce right away, so the storefront stops offering a gun that is already spoken for.
Note
A placeholder hold is a guess, not a decision. If staff later name that exact gun on a different order, the placeholder moves aside and the other order gets a different unit of the same item. A serial a human has actually confirmed is never taken away.
Reading a Woo Online Order¶
Open one from the link on its Pending Order card, or from the Woo Online Order list.
Status fields¶
| Field | Values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Fulfillment Status | Pending Fulfillment, Transferred, Cancelled | Where the order stands with the POS. Only Pending Fulfillment orders appear in the queue. |
| WooCommerce Status | The live status from the store | Only processing and completed count as paid. |
| Site | retail, dealer | Which store the order came from. Dealer orders come from the dealer portal. |
| Drop-ship Status | blank, Pending Route, Ordered, Complete, Error | Set when part of the order is fulfilled by a distributor. |
| Transferred At | Timestamp | When the POS finished the order. |
An order that is placed but not paid still holds its serial, and still does not reach the Pending Order queue. A firearm does not ship for an order the customer has not paid for.
Receiving FFL¶
The dealer the buyer chose at checkout: FFL License Number, FFL Business Name, FFL Phone, the premises street, city, state and ZIP, and FFL Expiration.
ATF FFL Record links the resolved license in the POS. That link, not the typed number, is what the disposition uses. FFL Raw Meta (fallback) keeps what the storefront sent, for the case where nothing resolved.
C&R (03) Transfer is ticked when the buyer gave a Type 03 collector license rather than a dealer's. There is no dealer at the far end and no Form 4473, so the dispose dialog asks staff to verify the license by hand.
C&R Verification¶
Filled in by staff at the moment of dispose, not by the storefront: Collector Name (as printed on license), C&R License Expiration, the licensed premises address, plus Verified By and Verified At.
The expiration is deliberately not carried over from a previous order. A license that was valid last month may have lapsed since, so it is read off the license every time.
Ship To (buyer)¶
The buyer's own address as entered on WooCommerce. For a firearm the parcel still goes to the receiving dealer, not here. This block matters for accessories and for the buyer's contact details.
Amounts¶
Order Total, Total Tax, Shipping Total, and Discount Total, in the order's own currency, copied from WooCommerce. The POS does not recompute them. These are the figures the Pending Order card shows.
Order Lines¶
One row per WooCommerce line: item code, quantity, unit price, subtotal, line total, and line tax. A line that could not be reserved carries its reservation error here.
Firearm Serials¶
One row per regulated firearm unit on the order. This is the table staff and the POS actually work from.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Item Code | The item this unit is for. |
| Unit # | Which unit of a multi-quantity line this row is. |
| Confirmed Serial | The gun staff named for this unit. Blank means the order is still waiting. |
| Stock Hold Serial | The placeholder gun the POS is holding meanwhile. |
| Reservation Error | Why a serial that arrived was refused. |
| Fulfillment | Which lane ships this unit: local, to_store, fds, or direct. |
local is a gun off your own shelf. to_store is one being procured to the
store first. fds is a distributor shipping a firearm straight to the receiving
dealer. direct is a distributor shipping an accessory to the buyer.
WooCommerce Refunds¶
Refunds recorded against the order on WooCommerce: refund id, amount, reason, and when the POS recorded it. A refunded order is not something the POS nets down at the counter. Settle the refund on WooCommerce first.
Entering the serial¶
For a per-gun listing the serial is already known. For any other firearm line, somebody has to say which gun is going, and that happens on the WooCommerce Edit Order screen, not in the POS. The serial travels back through the same webhook and lands in Confirmed Serial.
Until it does, the Pending Order card shows Awaiting serial from WooCommerce and the Dispose button is disabled. If the serial you typed is not free stock, is the wrong item, or is already held by another order, the card shows a Serial conflict badge and prints the reason. Correct it on the WooCommerce order.
On the Pending Order queue¶
Paid web orders show up as cards tagged Web, or Dealer for the dealer store, mixed in with counter and GunBroker rows and sorted by date.
A web row offers one action: Dispose. It carries no Ship, Record Payment, Edit, or Cancel Order button.
- Record Payment is absent because the buyer paid on WooCommerce before the order ever reached you.
- Edit and Cancel Order are absent because the order belongs to WooCommerce. Change it there.
- Ship is absent because the POS does not buy web labels. See below.
What Dispose does¶
- Books one FFL Transfer disposition per firearm serial into the bound book.
- Issues the stock, so the gun leaves inventory.
- Queues the push to FastBound.
- Books the revenue as a Sales Invoice mirroring the WooCommerce amounts. That invoice does not move stock again, because the disposition already did.
- Retires the listing on the store the order came from.
Who buys the shipping label¶
Your own ShipStation plugin on WooCommerce does, not the POS. A web order arrives in ShipStation directly from the store, with the store's own address and item data. That is why the POS never offers Ship on a web row, and why pushing one from here would create a second shipment for the same parcel.
Counter orders are the opposite case. The POS pushes those, because nothing else knows about them.
In-store pickup¶
When the buyer picks your own shop from the FFL list at checkout, they are collecting at the counter. There is no far end, so Dispose is refused: booking a transfer to yourself would put an entry in the bound book that never happened.
The card shows an In-store pickup badge and a Pickup button instead.
- Click Pickup. For a firearm the POS opens a draft counter order, already paid, and takes you straight to it.
- Run the Form 4473 and NICS on that order the ordinary way, then complete it at the register. Do not take money again. The buyer already paid on the store.
- The web order stays on the queue until that counter order is submitted, so an abandoned draft is visible rather than lost. Meanwhile the card offers Open counter order, which returns you to the same draft.
An order with no regulated firearm has no 4473 to run. Pickup closes it on the spot, issuing the stock, retiring the listing, and booking the revenue.
Pickup is refused while the order is unpaid on WooCommerce, while a distributor leg on it is still outstanding, while it carries a WooCommerce refund, or while a gun being procured to the store has not arrived.
Troubleshooting¶
| Message you see | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Awaiting serial from WooCommerce | No serial has been entered for a firearm line. | Enter it on the WooCommerce Edit Order screen. |
| No Active unreserved serial available | The order sold a gun you do not have free stock for. | Check stock, then correct the order on WooCommerce. |
| Verify the FFL first | The buyer's dealer license is expired or was never resolved. | Verify the license, then dispose. |
| has not been paid on WooCommerce | You tried to ring a pickup for an unpaid order. | Take payment on WooCommerce first. |
| carries a WooCommerce refund | The order was partly refunded. | Settle the refund on WooCommerce before ringing it. |
| still has an outstanding distributor order | Part of the order has not shipped from the distributor. | Wait for the distributor leg to settle. |
| is not an in-store pickup | Pickup was used on an order that ships to another dealer. | Use Dispose instead. |