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Importing Orders

Andrija Krstic Updated by Andrija Krstic

This article explains the numerous import facilities built into Subbly. Orders or customer profiles are usually created once the checkout is completed and the payment is processed for the customer. However, using manual imports via the Import Center makes it possible to import orders and subscriptions as well.

How to import orders?

You can import orders into Subbly from the Import Center. In order to properly run the import, you will need to prepopulate the CSV in the correct format and use that CSV to upload by clicking the button displayed in the following picture.

It is possible to upload max 5000 orders at a time.
Importing orders can come in handy if you're collecting payments from a subset of your customers externally, via direct debit, purchase orders or by collecting in person. If you are collecting all customer information, you can easily import these orders into Subbly so you can fulfill them and get them into Subbly's CMS for future tracking and management.

Once imported, the orders will automatically appear in the Orders section. Status of the imported order will depend on the due date of the order, ie., the shipping date of the order included on the CSV.

  • if the due date is in the past - the order will be in Awaiting Delivery status
  • if the due date is in the future - the order will be in Future Shipment status
Learn more about different statues for the orders here.

If the system encountered errors running manual import of the orders, you will be able to revisit the errors by checking the logs of imports and clicking See errors button as in the picture below.

If there was a problem with only one line of imported order list, the entire import will fail and none of the orders will be imported into the system. If the system doesn't report any error, you will see the orders in Orders section, ready for fulfillment.

Some additional important considerations can be found below:

Marking the order as shipped will send the transactional email to the order recipient's email address.

  • Importing the order doesn't run any charge on Subbly.
  • Subbly will create separate customer profile for every customer that had their order imported. Data from the CSV will be used (email, first and last name, shipping address...). Please note that importing orders doesn't create the payment source for the customer, so Subbly won't be able to process any subsequent renewals for the customer, unless the customer doesn't update the payment source himself/herself via customer portal.
  • If the email of the customer on the CSV matches the existing customer's CSV which is already in the database, new order will be created for that customer. However, there is an easier way of adding an adhoc order for the existing customer that won't require any manipulation of the order import tool.
  • Subbly charges regular transaction fee of 1% for any imported order, despite the fact that the payment wasn't initially processed on Subbly.
  • Manually imported orders will also fetch into Shipstation, Pirateship, or any other connected shipping platform, but only if the due date for the order is in the future.

How to populate order import CSV?

You can download the template for the order import from here.

Explanation of each one of the CSV columns of the order import CSV can be found below (optional columns are marked with asterisk (*)).

  • order ID - ID for the order which will be presented on the admin
It's important to understand that each line on the CSV corresponds to the one line item of the order. If you're wanting to import the order that has multiple line items on it, you need to add separate line to the CSV for each different line item. In this case, you need to keep the order ID the same for each one of these imported line items, otherwise they will end up being created as separate orders.
  • description* - order description
  • email - email address of the order recipient, this one will be used to create the customer profile if there isn't one already. At the same time, transactional emails will be sent to this email address
  • first_name - first name of the order recipient, used for creating the customer profile as well
  • last_name - last name of the order recipient, used for creating the customer profile as well
  • subscription_id* - ID for the subscription corresponding to the order, presented on the admin. Note that this column is optional and should be used only if you're importing the order that needs to be tied to the active subscription of the customer. If it's a one-off order, this column is redundant
  • sku - SKU of the line item that gets added to the order. Please note that this column is mandatory, therefore you need to create products with corresponding inventory items beforehand. See here for more on how to create SKUs.
  • currency - currency for the price tag of the order
  • price - price tag of the order
Although there's no actual payment taking place when manually importing the order, order has to have the bottom line so price needs to be imported as well. When importing the price, please use integer values (without commas or without decimals) on the CSV. That said, if the price of the product is $5.95, CSV input needs to be 595, and not 5.95, otherwise the import tool will return an error.
  • quantity - number of line items included in the order
  • address_first_line - first line of the address of the order recipient
  • address_second_line* - apt number or second line address of the order recipient. Please note that this column is optional and can be skipped if not applicable
  • address_city - city of the order recipient
  • address_state - state of the order recipient
  • address_country - country of the order recipient (can be both abbreviated or full name, ie., both UK and United Kingdom should be fine)
  • address_zip - address zip of the order recipient
  • address_phone* - phone number of the order recipient. This column is optional but could come in handy if you're setting up some SMS-driven marketing automations.
  • address_first_name - first name of the order recipient, could be different then the name on the customer profile
  • address_last_name - last name of the order recipient, could be different then the name on the customer profile
  • due_date - shipping date for the order which will be presented on the admin, also important for setting up the status of the order
  • shipping_method_id* - shipping method ID for the order if one is applicable, column is optional
  • po_number* - purchase order number if one is available, column is optional

Please make sure not to change the order of columns or headings of the CSV template, otherwise the import won't work.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ping our support team!

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