Order Acknowledgements Report

Click here for a sample Order Acknowledgement (for a gift order)

This report produces order acknowledgements for paid new and renewal orders. The acknowledgements are similar to QuickFill's standard bills except for the following:

1. There is an "A" (instead of an effort number) after the order number;

2. There is a zero amount due;

3. The payment type, payment amount, and either the last four digits of the credit card number plus the credit card expiration date or the check number are included on the form; and

4. The credit card block, "check payable to" line, amount line, and term line are omitted

Depending on the billing series specified on the filter, the acknowledgements may be printed using the layout for simple bills or using the detailed layout that lists ship-to customers who belong to a gift or group subscription.

Acknowledgements are only produced for paid orders.  Orders that are received without payment will be sent a bill.  Note that the definition of "paid" here includes a gray area.  What if the order was received with payment but the amount of the payment was not quite enough to cover the amount due.  You may wish to write off the shortfall.  In that situation an order acknowledgement will be produced provided the amount due is less than the minimum cancel amount specified on the publication definition screen.

• Note: agency orders

Acknowledgements for agency orders are sent to the ship-to address. The amount due, tax, and payment amounts are all adjusted to reverse the agency discount.

• Note: credit balances

Any order with a credit balance, or with an amount due less than the minimum bill amount, will be acknowledged as though the exact amount due had been paid.

• Note: order acknowledgements for specific order numbers

If you would like to create an order acknowledgement for a specific order number, look that order number up and then use the 'Replacement acknowledgement' transaction.

Use this billing series to specify the messages and format of the acknowledgement

Right click or press F2 to select the billing series that contains the messages and format (simple or detailed) you would like to use on the replacement order acknowledgement. The messages and format will be the same as those used for billing effort one of the billing series selected.

• Note: order acknowledgements in a custom format

In the QuickFill Form Designer create a new form set (or replicate an existing form set) that contains a bill form that has the text and layout you desire. Create a billing package definition with a the form set code you used in the Form Designer. Specify this billing package on the order acknowledgements report screen.

Alternatively you can create mail-merge order acknowledgements by specifying a billing package with a 'Bill format' of "Mail-merge" and MMERG1, MMERG2, MMERG3, or MMERG4 in the 'Mail-merge format code' field. (Click here for details on  the 'Bill format' and 'Mail-merge format code' fields.)

Also produce a dBASE file for gift recipient notifications

Check this field if you would like QuickFill to create a dBASE file (for gift recipient notifications) in addition to order acknowledgements. The format of the file is as follows:

Date range, Use order date, Use payment date

Unlike it does for bills, QuickFill does not record the fact that an acknowledgement was sent in the order record.  For this reason there must be a means of ensuring that an acknowledgement gets sent once and only once.  This is accomplished by selecting orders that fall within a specific range of dates.  Typically you will run the Order Acknowledgements report every Monday, producing acknowledgements for orders received during the prior week.

Using the order date to control your selection works well in most cases.  Bill-me orders will automatically be sent bills (by the billing update or the issue label update if you choose to send the bill with the first issue) whereas the paid orders will be sent acknowledgements (the filter has a built-in requirement that excludes unpaid orders, or at least those that have an amount due that exceeds the minimum cancel amount specified on the publication definition screen).  But suppose you want to send acknowledgements to the bill-me orders too, once the payment has been received.  In that case you should use the payment date as your selection criteria.  The orders received with payment will be sent an acknowledgement immediately and the bill-me orders will be sent an acknowledgement after the payment has been received.

Subscriptions

Use these fields to specify the types of subscriptions for which you would like to create order acknowledgements.

Include gifts…

Use these fields to specify whether or not order acknowledgements should be created for gift subscriptions.

Prepaid, Paid later

Use these fields to specify whether acknowledgements should be created for prepaid orders only or for all paid orders.

New orders, Renewals

Use these fields to include or exclude new orders and renewals.

Click here for more information about Filter screens and Options for running reports.