When a customer places an order through your website cart (VirtueMart), you will receive an email notifying you of the order.

• If you process orders using your own credit card processing, you will need to login to retrieve the credit card number.
• If you process orders through PayPal, see "The Order Process Using PayPal" for more info.

To Retrieve The Credit Card Number:

• Login to your Joomla Admin area at http://www.YOURSITE.NAME/administrator/ using your username and password.
• On the main Joomla menu, go to Components > VirtueMart.
• On the VirtueMart menu, go to Orders > List Orders. This shows a list of orders received.
• Click on the Order Number you want to see. (If you click on the customer "Name" you only see information about the customer, not the order).
• Credit card info for the order received is at the bottom of the order. The card will be missing the last four digits, but you already have those numbers from the email notification you received.

The standard PayPal payment module works well with VirtueMart.

• An order order made at the website initially is categorized as "Pending" until the customer completes the payment at PayPal.
• After payment is made, PayPal notifies your website and the order is changed to "Confirmed".
• Always check your PayPal account to be sure payment for a particular order was received.
• Once paid, your customer expects shipment within the time frame you state. We recommend emailing the customer to confirm a ship date even if you are shipping on time. Good communication with the customer leads to repeat sales and recommendations.

• Remember that with PayPal you have to receive both the order from your website and PayPal's payment email for it to be a paid order.
• When you receive the order from your site, the status of the order will be "Pending" because the website sends that before checkout is completed at PayPal. After payment is made, PayPal notifies your website and the order is changed to "Confirmed".
• If you receive an email from PayPal notifying you of payment made for the order in question, then that means the customer completed the payment at PayPal.
• If you don't receive notification from PayPal confirming payment it probably means the customer did not complete the payment process. This doesn't mean the order should be necessarily discarded since the customer may choose to return to the site later and complete the payment process.
• Always check your PayPal account to be sure payment for a particular order was received. Its possible you might not receive an email from PayPal even if the customer paid.
  

How To Check On An Order Received If You Use PayPal

• If you have any question about the status of any order received you should login to the Admin area of your site and check the order.
• Also login to your PayPal account and confirm that you actually received payment.

How To View Orders Received If You Use PayPal

• Login to the Admin area of your website.
• Go to Components > VirtueMart > Orders > List Orders.
• Click on the order number to view order details.
• If the order is paid the "Order Status" should show "Confirmed".
• If you want to email the customer, type a message in the "Comment" box and then click the "Update Status" box.
• You don't have to change the order status to email the customer but you can if that is appropriate. The customer gets an email worded like this:

Hi [CUSTOMER NAME],

the Status of your Order No. XXX has been changed.

Comments on your Order:
[YOUR COMMENTS SHOW HERE]
___________________________

New Status is: [WHATEVER THE STATUS IS]

Note: the customer can login to the site using a link on their order confirmation email to check the status of an order placed through your website.

VirtueMart assigns an order status to all orders made on your website. The options are:

• Pending - this is the initial setting for all orders placed.
• Confirmed - means paid. If you process though PayPal, the status will show confirmed after successful payment at PayPal by the customer. If you process payments manually, you will need to update Order Status yourself after you process the customers credit card.
• Cancelled - change Order Status to "Cancelled" if the order is terminated before completion.
• Refunded - change Order Status to "Refunded" if the order is returned and/or payment refunded.
• Shipped - change Order Status to "Shipped" after the order has been shipped. This is important because the customer may want to check on the order after you have shipped.