What do I need to do to raise the starting number that's used to keep track of the orders.
 
It's just a "vanity" thing, and I think that for a brand new site, the customers might have a little more confidence in the seller if their invoice number was something HIGHER than 5. (Who wants to be the fifth customer? I imagine if the customer thinks that the seller has many more sales under-their-belt, it might make them feel less nervous about dealing with a new seller.)
 
For the same reasons that some business order bank checks with a starting number that's higher than "101", it would be nice to be able to increase the invoice numbers so that they start at 1001.
 
Any ideas?

The next invoice number is 1+ the last invoice number, so changine the last invoice number from 5 to 55555 means the next invoice will be 55556 (vs 6).
 
To make this happen you need to locate the last record in the va_orders table. Change the 'order_id' field of that record to a big number, say 55555. The next tome Viart generates an order number it will be 55556.
 
Viart's method for generating invoices is simple, too simple in fact. The 1+ method makes it easy calculate a vendors web site sales. Multiply the number of orders by the the average ticket for their market and you get a clear picture of saves $$ goung through their website.
 
We're doing a little obfuscation mod, after we test it I'll post it.

wazoodle , would be very interested in that too.
 
DickS

Another way is to create dummy order .eg with Order_id as 5555 and just import this in via the order import facilty.
 
Andrew

Hmz, as I think of this the obfuscation is nice if it still does the numbering sequentially. In Europe (and I guess elsewhere too), invoice numbers need to follow seamlessly. E.g. random number sequences are not allowed.
 
DickS

Same as wazoodle, I simply found the most current order number in the database table and manually changed it to what I wanted. The old order numbers were unchanged, all new orders continue from the new higher number.
 
I agree, I sure don't want a customer to think we are a brand new company just because we changed shopping carts. As for the obfuscation, I would like an option even to insert an alpha-numeric prefix in front of the order number. Greg

Can the order number be changed to eg.
last number +5 instead of last number +1
and which file would we change
Or is it an auto increment thing done by the database
 
When the website is very new, not many orders are expected. It would look embarrassing for the number to go up so slowly as +1
 
Thanks

"not many orders are expected. It would look embarrassing for the number to go up so slowly"
 
Or you can enjoy projecting a small personal service.
 
Surely that is only a problem where you expect customers to re-order frequently? If customers only order once or if there is a long time period between orders it is not such an issue?
 
Nevertheless, having said that, we had only +1 increments in our early days and it was also a positive. We give excellent service and customers used to say that they hoped we did not grow too big as they feared we would not maintain out high service levels.
 
I actually feel that many problems only linger in the mind - I hope you don't mind me saying that but I don't believe that it really something to worry about.

Greg, I'd be interested in an alpha prefix to the order number as well. If you find out a way to do this, please share.

You can't do an alpha prefix attached to the order number - the database field will not accept this.

However you can add a static alpha prefix in the emails sent to customers by putting it before the {order_id}. You could also put a static numeric as well, for example to identify the year or increase the appearance of the number.
(See http://www.viart.com/custom_email_responses.html)
 
The only difficulty is the addition of the "#" symbol added to the invoice number which I think is added in admin/admin_order_email.php at lines 173 and 241 and in admin/admin_order_sms.php at line 110
 
 

Yes, Ned, I add a "V" but find that this method does not discriminate between sites and is not recorded within Admin.
 
The only reason I use this is to distinguish between my Viart shops and another shop using different eCommerce software.
 
Chris