A customer says they paid but you can't find their order, or an order has come in and then seemed to stall. This article walks you through finding it, working out whether money actually changed hands, and putting it right. Most of the time the order is there and a filter is hiding it. The rest of the time it's a payment that never confirmed, which has a clear fix.
First, rule out a filter
Before assuming an order is lost, check it isn't just out of view. On the Orders page:
- Set the status tabs back to All so you're not looking at a single stage.
- Clear the Date range (the From and To fields), or widen it to cover when the order was placed.
- If you run more than one branch, check the location selector in the top bar isn't pinned to the wrong location.
Then search by the customer's name, email or the order number. A "missing" order is very often sitting under a different status tab or outside the date window. See Manage orders in the admin for the full set of filters.
If the order is stuck on pending
If you find the order and it shows Pending, and it never moved to Received, the payment didn't confirm to MenuDock. Pending means the order was created but the charge hasn't been confirmed. There are two possibilities, and your payment provider dashboard tells you which.
Open Stripe (or Square or PayPal, whichever the store uses) and look for the charge:
- No charge captured. The card authorisation dropped before it completed, so no money was taken. The customer hasn't paid. Ask them to place the order again. Nothing to refund.
- A charge is captured but the order is still pending. The payment succeeded but the confirmation never reached MenuDock, so the order never flipped to Received. That's a webhook delivery issue. See Stripe webhook and payment errors to diagnose and resolve it.
The jump from pending to received is the one step that happens on its own: the payment provider confirms the charge, the order becomes Received, and the customer's confirmation email goes out. If that confirmation never lands, the order is still pending.
The customer says they paid but got no email
The confirmation email fires when an order reaches Received, not when it's created. So if the order is stuck on Pending, that's why no email went out. Sort the payment first (see above) and the confirmation follows once the order reaches Received.
If the order did reach Received and the customer still says nothing arrived, open the order and use the Email log for this order link on the detail page. It shows exactly which emails were sent and when. If the log shows the confirmation as sent, the email reached their provider, so ask them to check spam and that they gave the right address. See Browse the email log for how to read it.
When to refund
Refund when the customer was genuinely charged with no order produced, or charged twice. If your provider dashboard shows a captured charge but no usable order exists (and the customer has reordered, or no longer wants it), send the money back. Open the order and use Issue Refund, or if you're cancelling the order at the same time, Mark as Cancelled with automatic refund-on-cancel. Full steps are in Cancel and refund an order and Issue a refund.
Don't refund a pending order where the dashboard shows no captured charge. There's nothing to send back, and the customer hasn't paid.
Related articles
- Stripe webhook and payment errors
- Order status flow
- Manage orders in the admin
- Cancel and refund an order
- Issue a refund
- Browse the email log
Need a hand?
Still can't account for an order after checking the filters, the provider dashboard and the email log? Email support@menudock.co.uk with your store name, the order number or customer email, and what the provider dashboard shows for the charge.