AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

Hoping someone can shed some light on this message for me. After placing an order a customer requested to have their shipping downgraded from Overnight to Ground. Since I could not find a way to actually change the shipping method (please let me know if I missed something) I just changed the dollar amount of the shipping costs. Once payment was processed at the new amount the following appeared in the notes/history.

6/2/2008 9:56:06 PM
somecustomer The order has been paid, a credit balance of -$22.14 remains.

6/2/2008 9:56:06 PM
somecustomer A payment capture for $72.79 has been received. No further captures possible.

6/2/2008 9:56:06 PM
somecustomer The order has been paid, a credit balance of -$22.14 remains.

So was the customer charged the original amount? What exactly does this message mean?

Shipping methods are just hidden line items on an order. You are correct, AC7 doesn't not currently have a mechanism for changing the shipping method after the order is placed. The only workaround is as you described, edit the order line item and manually adjust both the description and price for shipping.

From the history/notes list you posted, it appears the capture was performed on the original authorization amount. By default, AC7 will capture the original authorization amount regardless of the current order balance. There are two ways around this, both procedure changes:

1. Void the original authorization, adjust the shipping charge and obtain a new authorization for the lower order amount. Not ideal because you have to contact the customer again.

2. Change the dollar amount to be captured when you initiate the capture. This requires a payment gateway that supports partial capture. If you're payment gateway doesn't support partial capture, this option is not possible for you.

With my business, we void the original authorization and obtain a new one on the lower amount. This has a few advantages...the first being a clean audit trail of what was done financially to the order. Secondly, 100% of the time there is an order change to shipping, the customer is already on the phone with us. They (usually) understand a change to their order after placing it means new payment information could be required.

In the example you cited, the customer is due a refund of the credit balance you are seeing.

If you don't mind a suggestion, there is a way to increase the audit trail of the changes made. In your example, I would have added a second shipping charge line item with a negative amount of the original shipping charge. In accounting terms this is called a "Reversal" - you are reversing out the original charge for shipping. Then I would add a third shipping charge line item with the new shipping method name and charge amount.
Doing it this way ensures you know exactly what was done originally and what changes were made after-the-fact. More importantly, the customer will see these line item changes on their order history. If you rely strictly on order history/notes to track your financial changes, the customer can't see all of those messages.

Hope that helps...