A Complete Guide on Setting Up WooCommerce Sequential Order Numbers

Introduction

If you're using WooCommerce to power your eCommerce store, you may want to create sequential order numbers for your products. This can make it easier for customers and employees to track orders and help with inventory management.

There are times when you'll notice that your WooCommerce orders are not sequential. It can be frustrating when you're trying to determine your products' order or when you need to locate a specific order, and it's not in numerical order.

A quick Google search will show you plenty of plugins you can use to fix this.

This article will show you how to create WooCommerce sequential order numbers using the Sequential Order Number for WooCommerce plugin, both the free and premium versions.

Let's get started!

What are WooCommerce Order Numbers?

By default, WooCommerce assigns a new order number for each order placed. This means that every time a customer places an order in your store, it gets assigned an order number.

WooCommerce automatically assigns order numbers. Each order on your store has a unique ID number linked to it.

So, what is an order number?

WooCommerce order numbers are identifiers for each order placed in your store. You can use them to track an order, find out its status, and more. Moreover, you can also change the format of your order numbers and set a starting number. You can find WooCommerce order numbers on the Orders page in your WordPress dashboard.

Why are WooCommerce Order Numbers not in a Sequential Order?

There can be a few reasons why WooCommerce order numbers are not sequential.

One reason could be that the WordPress admin back-end created the orders when testing the WooCommerce checkout page. By creating orders using this method, all the test orders will be assigned the default order number assigned by WooCommerce.

Additionally, WooCommerce orders may not be sequential due to refunds associated with the orders. Refunded WooCommerce order numbers will not appear sequential because WooCommerce assigns a new order number to the refunded orders. By default, WooCommerce will prefix the refunded order numbers with an R followed by the original order number.

A final reason why WooCommerce orders may not be in sequential order is that there are failed transactions associated with the orders. Failed transactions will also result in a new order number getting assigned to the order. Meanwhile, for refunds, the original order number is prefixed with an 'F'. This is to help identify which orders have failed and need attention.

How to Customize WooCommerce Order Numbers to Appear Sequentially

Default WooCommerce doesn't provide built-in features to create sequential and custom order numbers. Consequently, plugins are the perfect solution to creating consecutive order numbers in WooCommerce. One such plugin is the Sequential Order Number for WooCommerce. The plugin helps in keeping track of orders in WooCommerce. But, how?

This plugin adds a sequential number to each new order placed on your WooCommerce site. The number is automatically added to the subject and body of emails sent out from your store to keep track of your orders easily.

Using this plugin, let's see how you can create consecutive order numbers for your online store.

Step 1: Installation

On your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New. Enter the keywords' Sequential Order Number for WooCommerce' on the search box. Once you've identified the plugin, click on install and then activate it.

Step 2: Setup and configuration

After installing the plugin, hover to WooCommerce > Settings > Sequential Order Number. The starting order number is by default set to '1'.

Since we want to customize our order numbers, we'll set our starting order number as '2000'. This assigns orders placed after installing the plugin with the value of '2000' and above sequentially. In addition, you can customize any other settings on this page to your liking. Then save your changes to proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Customize sequential order number settings

While using the free plugin, you can set your custom sequential order numbers in 4 different ways.

• [Number] - For instance, when your starting order number is 2000, you'll get order numbers like 2000, 2001, 2002…

• [Prefix][Number] - When your starting order number is 2000, and the prefix is on, your series of orders is listed as ON2000, ON2001, ON2002…

• [Date][Number] - Using the date format with the current month, your orders will be listed as May2000, May2001, May2002…

• [Prefix][Date][Number] - With the prefix set to on, date format with the current month, and your starting number set to 2000, your order sequence should appear as ONMay2000, ONMay2001, ONMay2002…

The plugin's premium version contains additional order number formats options that allow you to choose a date, prefix, and number. The prefix appears at the start of the order number.

On top of that, the plugin has ten pre-defined date formats for use in the order number sequence. For instance, the input [y]/[m]/[d] will give you the order date format as 21/07/28.

You can set a fixed length for your order number sequence with the order number length.

The plugin also allows you to start the order sequence from any number and change all existing numbers to follow a sequence of your choice.

Let's look at some additional features you can achieve while using the premium version of this plugin.

Custom Order Numbers formats

Orders with a zero subtotal in your store are known as free orders. The free version of the Sequential Orders for WooCommerce plugin has limited options. For instance, you can't create a separate sequence for free orders. By keeping free orders separately from paid orders, you can easily track the revenue generated from each sale in your store. With Sequential Orders Number Pro, you can create a separate sequence for your free orders in your WooCommerce store. Here's how you can do it.

Creating Custom Order Numbers for Your WooCommerce

Step 1: Set a custom order number for the paid orders

On your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Sequential Orders and activate the license to receive alerts for all the updates. Also, ensure you configure the plugin to obtain a custom order number for all the paid orders. On the same page, you can also customize different settings to achieve the specific format you need for your paid orders.

Step 2: Configure the setting for free orders

To create a separate sequence for your free orders, tick the checkbox with the option 'Enable to create separate order number sequence for free orders'. Once this option is enabled, you'll see two other fields. You can then select the start number for your free orders and a prefix to allow you to differentiate between free and paid orders.

Wrap Up

When you are selling products through an online store, it is essential to create sequential order numbers for your products. This is because it makes it easy for your customers to track their purchases and also helps in improving the customer experience.

One way to create sequential order numbers for your WooCommerce products is by using the Sequential Order Number for WooCommerce plugin. This plugin allows you to set up sequential numbers for each product and customize the number sequence. You can also display the sequential order numbers on your WordPress site's frontend, making it easy for your customers to track their purchases.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create sequential order numbers for your WooCommerce products.

Got any queries? Let us know in the comments below.