Offline Payments

The Offline payment method lets customers place an order without paying online. They pay you another way, like cash, a check, a bank transfer, or when they pick up their order, and you mark the order paid once the money arrives. It's part of the free Sunshine Photo Cart plugin and has no platform fees.

Turning On Offline Payments

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Sunshine > Settings > Payments
2. Turn on Offline with the toggle switch
3. Click Configure to open its settings

You can drag the payment methods in the list to change the order they appear in at checkout. Offline can be offered on its own or next to Stripe, PayPal, Square or any other payment method you use.

Offline Settings

• Name is what your customer sees at checkout. If you leave it blank, it shows "Offline". Something like "Pay by check or cash" or "Pay at pickup" is clearer for most customers.
• Description shows under the name at checkout. If you leave it blank, it shows "Payments handled offline (like check or cash)".
• Fees lets you add a percentage or a fixed amount to orders paid this way, with a Fee Name your customer sees. Leave it at "No added fees" unless you want to charge extra for paying this way. See Payment Gateway Fees for details.
• Instructions tell your customer how to pay you. Put in everything they need, such as who to make a check out to, your mailing address, your bank details, or when and where they can pay at pickup.

The instructions are the most important setting here. Without them, your customer finishes checkout with no idea how to pay you.

What Your Customer Sees

At checkout, Offline appears as one of the payment choices with the name and description you set. When your customer picks it, the button at the bottom of the checkout reads Submit order instead of asking them to pay.

After they submit the order, they land on their order page. It shows the order status as Pending Payment along with your instructions. They also get the order receipt email, which includes the same instructions.

The instructions only show while the order is waiting to be paid. Once you mark the order paid, they are hidden from the order page and later emails.

What Happens When the Order Is Placed

An Offline order is saved with the Pending Payment status. Everything else about the order is finished right away, the same as an order paid online:

• You get the new order email, and your customer gets their receipt
• Any store credit your customer used is taken from their account
• Discount codes they used are counted toward the code's use limits
• Gift card balances they used are taken off their gift cards
• Stock is lowered for products that track it, if you use the Sell Anything add-on

Doing this at checkout means the same store credit, gift card or limited discount code can't be used again on another order while you wait for the payment.

Marking an Offline Order Paid

When the cash, check or transfer arrives:

1. Go to Sunshine > Orders and open the order
2. Change the Order Status to New
3. To let your customer know, check Notify customer of status change
4. Click Update

From there you can move the order to Processing, Ready for Pickup or Shipped/Completed as you normally would. You can also mark several orders paid at once from the Sunshine > Orders list using Bulk actions > Change status to: New. A bulk change emails each customer about their new status (see how to turn that off).

Since the order was already finished at checkout, marking it paid doesn't take store credit, gift card balances or discount code uses a second time. It only changes the status, sends the status email if you asked for it, and makes any gift cards the customer bought.

If the Payment Never Arrives

If your customer never pays, change the order status to Cancelled. Sunshine gives back what the order used:

• Store credit goes back to the customer's account
• Gift card balances go back on the gift cards
• Stock goes back up for Sell Anything products

Free prints from a session fee that were used on the order are given back too, if you use the Session Fees add-on.

Gift Cards Bought With Offline Payments

If you use the Gift Cards add-on and a customer buys a gift card with Offline payment, the gift card isn't created when the order is placed. It's made the moment you mark the order paid, and the gift card email goes out then (or on the date the customer chose, for scheduled delivery).

This way nobody can spend a gift card that hasn't been paid for. If you cancel the unpaid order instead, no gift card is ever made.

Testing Checkout With the Test Payment Method

Sunshine also has a Test payment method in Sunshine > Settings > Payments. It's meant for trying out your checkout, not for real customers. An order placed with Test goes straight to New as if it were paid, without any money changing hands, and is marked as a test order.

By default only admins see the Test method at checkout, so your customers won't. Its Allow Customers setting lets everyone use it, which means anyone could place an order without paying, so only turn that on for a short test. While Test is turned on, a warning shows at the top of your WordPress admin as a reminder to turn it off when you're done.