OFN User Guide
English
English
  • Welcome to the OFN User Guide
  • Local OFN organisations and contacts
  • Where does my business fit in OFN?
  • Quick Start Guides
    • Hub
    • Shop
    • Profile
    • Digital Farmer's Markets
  • Features
    • Register and Create an Enterprise Account
    • Dashboard
    • Enterprise profile
      • Package / profile types
      • Enterprise Settings
      • Create or connect with your supplying producers
      • Making a producer profile searchable by product category
      • Enterprise Permissions
      • Change Profile Managers/Owners
    • Products
      • Add products
      • Product variants
      • Product properties
      • Pricing meat & other 'complete' products of unknown weight
      • Inventory tool
      • Group Buy - for bulk ordering
      • Product and Inventory import
    • Shopfront
      • Shipping Methods
      • Payment Methods
      • Enterprise Fees
      • Order cycles
        • Order Cycles (for Hubs)
        • Order Cycles (for Shops)
        • Opening more than one order cycle
        • Permissions in multi-enterprise order cycles
      • Customer management and conditional displays/prices
        • Customer Management
        • Tags and Tag Rules
      • Vouchers
      • Private shopfront
      • White Label shopfront
      • Display only shopfront
    • Orders
      • Manage Orders
      • Create orders manually
      • Refunds and Adjusting Payments
    • Subscriptions
      • Configuration
      • Subscriptions - Creating & Managing orders
      • Subscriptions - the customer's perspective
      • Subscriptions - FAQs
    • Reports
      • General tips
      • Order Reports
      • Reports for Bulk Order Management
      • Reports for Hub Management
      • Packing Reports
      • Payment Reports
      • Tax Reports
      • OFN Invoices
      • Xero Invoices
    • Groups
      • Create and manage a Group page
    • API
  • Hub management tips
    • How To's
      • Delete an Enterprise
      • Soft Close an Order Cycle
      • Open your Shop on 'Preview'
      • Customise your shop appearance
      • Take orders on Credit
      • Vouchers v. tags
      • Early Shopping 'Hour' for Priority Groups
      • Discounted/Free Delivery for Vulnerable Customers
      • Cash/EFTs for trusted customers only
      • Reward your volunteers
      • Running a Social Media Promotion
      • How to Create Gift Vouchers
    • Marketing Tips
    • Social Media
  • Complementary software and tools
    • Newsletters & Promotional Emails
    • Accounting and Invoicing Packages
      • Paying suppliers with ABA files (Australia)
    • API
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Glossary of OFN Terms
  • Shopping with Open Food Network
    • About Open Food Network
    • How to find an online food shop near you
    • Shopping and Placing an Order
    • The people & businesses who make your food
    • Your OFN account
    • Subscription Orders
    • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Feedback
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On this page
  • I changed an order/order cycle/subscription etc, but my changes disappeared
  • I can't set up an order cycle
  • I want to sell whole chickens but don't know the weight of individual birds until day of slaughter
  • I supply 'Farmshop A' with potatoes which cost £1/kg. Why are my potatoes displaying for sale to customers at £1.20/kg?
  • I've added new products but they aren't displaying on the shopfront
  • Not all of my supplier's products are available for me to add to my order cycle
  • A new Producer has started up nearby but I can't add their products to my hub shop front
  • I run a veg box scheme. How can I let customers add extra items to their subscription orders each week?
  • There's been a crop failure and we have fewer tomatoes supplied than we need to meet everyone's order
  • A producer is only willing to supply my hub if their orders meet a minimum criteria
  • I can't refund a customer who paid by PayPal
  • How can my customers edit their orders after they've been placed?
  • I no longer want to sell through OFN, how do I close my shop?
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Frequently Asked Questions

Find solutions to some of the common questions we receive from our users below

PreviousAPINextGlossary of OFN Terms

Last updated 2 years ago

I changed an order/order cycle/subscription etc, but my changes disappeared

It's likely your changes weren't saved. Any changes you make must be saved by clicking the save/update button before leaving the page in order for them to take effect. Try making the changes again, ensuring you click save, and if you're still having trouble.

I can't set up an order cycle

  • Do you have an active set up for your shop or hub?

  • Do you have an active set up for your shop or hub?

  • Are all the ? You need to set open and closing times for the order cycle, give it a unique name, and complete the 'Ready for' field box.

I want to sell whole chickens but don't know the weight of individual birds until day of slaughter

  • This is not a problem! Read for a range of ways the OFN platform has been designed to be flexible to meet the specific needs of food producers.

I supply 'Farmshop A' with potatoes which cost £1/kg. Why are my potatoes displaying for sale to customers at £1.20/kg?

Farmshop A may need to generate extra revenue from every sale to cover their overhead costs. They can do this in a number of ways:

  • If you set up an whereby your business permits Farmshop A to add your products to their inventory then they can modify the prices a customer pays for your products that way.

  • Farmshop A may add an to your cost price for the potatoes. If this is the case then customers purchasing the items will be able to see a break down of the price they pay by clicking on the pie chart icon to the right of the product price on the shop front.

Good working relationships are key to any sustainable food network. Chat to Farmshop A about how they have organised their sales of your produce (either in person, over the phone or by email).

Farmshop A should (morally) pay you £1/kg for every kg of potatoes you supply to meet their sales. Payment of goods (from distributor to supplier) is a private arrangement organised outside of the OFN platform.

I've added new products but they aren't displaying on the shopfront

Newly added products must be added to an active order cycle before they are visible on a shopfront for customers to purchase.

  • If you are supplying the goods to a hub, then you must get in touch with the person who is coordinating the order cycle in question. This has to be done externally to the OFN platform (drop them an email or phone/speak in person).

  • If you are a Hub, then:

In all cases, check the stock level of the new products. Only items with an In Stock? value of 1 or greater or those marked as Unlimited will be visible for a customer to purchase.

Not all of my supplier's products are available for me to add to my order cycle

A new Producer has started up nearby but I can't add their products to my hub shop front

I run a veg box scheme. How can I let customers add extra items to their subscription orders each week?

The additional items will be processed as a separate order. The customer will be directed to the checkout to pay for these items. Payment for their subscription order will be taken at the end of the order cycle automatically.

There's been a crop failure and we have fewer tomatoes supplied than we need to meet everyone's order

A producer is only willing to supply my hub if their orders meet a minimum criteria

I can't refund a customer who paid by PayPal

Currently you are not able to issue refunds to customers who purchased goods by PayPal directly through the OFN platform. You will need to visit your business PayPal account and manually make the refund to the customer there. This is a functionality we hope to develop in the future, should user sufficient users demand it.

How can my customers edit their orders after they've been placed?

On occasion, a customer may place an order with your food enterprise and then change their mind or remember they forgot to add a few items. There are a few scenarios:

Allow the customer to edit their own orders

This will mean customers can:

  • Remove items from their basket or cancel their order altogether.

  • Increase the quantity of products already in their basket, provided the order was not placed by the subscription system.

Customers will not be able to add additional products to their basket. On doing so they will be taken to the checkout again to pay for these items. The two orders will appear in your reports one after another if sorted by customer name though, so they can be packed together (if you wish) when you are preparing for collection.

Edit orders on your customer's behalf only

The order was placed by a subscription.

For information about editing an order placed by the subscription system see:

I no longer want to sell through OFN, how do I close my shop?

If you are a Shop, then you must add the new products to your.

Make sure the new products are added to both the incoming and outgoing sections of the

If the new products are not available for selection to add to either incoming/outgoing sections then check your . You may have to before they can be added to the shop front.

You may have your set to 'New products must be added to my inventory before they can be added to my shopfront'. In which case, you must review your product inventory, to the inventory for them to be available for selection in the order cycle.

If you are coordinating an order cycle involving multiple suppliers and distributors, some or all of which may use their product inventory to stock their shop fronts, double check all the relevant enterprise permissions have been granted. Read more .

You must seek their permission before you are able to retail the goods they make or supply. This is done formally on the OFN platform by the new producer through .

Scenario One: The customer purchases the veg box each week through an automated set up on the OFN platform: Change your -> Shop Preferences-> Change Orders? to 'Customers can change/cancel orders while order cycle is open'. When the order cycle opens, the customer will be sent an automated email to say that their veg box order has been created. They then have until the order cycle closes to login to their OFN account, edit their order and add extra items from your shop front to their basket.

Scenario Two: The customer purchases a veg box through an external platform. In this case, perhaps set up a which is only visible to customers registered to your external veg box scheme. Use external software or spreadsheets to match additional items brought through the OFN shop front to customers' veg boxes so that you only have to make deliveries once!

Not a problem - happens to everyone once in a while! Read for steps to adjust all your customers' orders at once.

The 'group buy' functionality described can be used for this purpose too!

If none of these steps help, or there is another problem that you would like advice with, then please contact your, who will do their best to get back to you with solutions and help as soon as they can.

In your Enterprise Settings, under the tab, you can enable 'Change Orders'

You can add a message to your asking customers to contact you by email or phone if they wish to adjust their orders. Products can be added or removed from orders using the steps outlined .

Note that adding items to an order will invoke the need for to be collected.

for one off orders

for editing the base subscription order.

In the primary details section of your , change Visible in Search from 'public' to 'hide all references'. This will remove your enterprise from anywhere it is listed on our platform. You can log back in at any time and change your visibility settings back to 'public' if you decide to re-open your enterprise or pass it on to someone else, otherwise your enterprise will stay dormant.

contact your local instance
payment method
shipping method
relevant required fields complete
here
enterprise permission
enterprise fee
active, open order cycle
active order cycle
here
Enterprise Permissions
private shopfront
here
local OFN support team
enterprise settings
subscription
here
here
here
here
add the products to your inventory
inventory settings
add new/hidden products
Inventory settings
Enterprise Settings
Shop Preferences
Shopfront Notices page
additional payments