Floral Subscriptions and Standing Orders Made Easy

Florists love floral subscriptions and standing orders but traditionally they have been difficult to manage. FloristWare makes it easy to keep the orders going out and the money rolling in.

Every florist loves the idea of the recurring revenue that comes with floral subscriptions and standing orders... The affluent customer that wants flowers delivered to their home every other weekend. The business that wants a fresh arrangement at their reception desk every Monday. The hotel, restaurant or golf club that wants a big showpiece arrangement every week.

This kind of regular, dependable income is something most florists dream of, and a lot work very hard to get. But managing these kinds of order can take all the fun out of it.

 

The Problems With Managing Standing Orders Without A Flower Shop Management System

A lot of florists, even those that use a florist-specific point of sales system, end up trying to keep track of their subscriptions and standing orders on paper or, even worse, in the collective shop memory.

There are a number of problems here. The first is that it's fragile –it depends on somebody in the shop remembering. The next is that it's inefficient – you have to find the details and manually write up order tickets, delivery slips etc. The third is that it's dangerous – most of these shops are storing credit card numbers in a way that is prohibited by their card processing agreements and could result in large fines and the loss of processing privileges.

 

What Other Floral POS Systems Get Wrong About Standing Orders

Clients that have come to us from other systems have shared their complaints about how that other software handled standing orders:

  • hard to create new standing orders/subscriptions
  • hard to edit and update standing order details
  • cumbersome to schedule/edit/extend delivery dates
  • easy to miss standing orders that need to be filled
  • easy to miss standing orders that need to be extended
  • the hacks involved in making it works skews accounting
  • taking payment on standing orders is not easy

And several shops have told us that the standing order features in their old systems were ultimately so flawed they just kept doing everything on paper.

 

How FloristWare Does Standing Orders Right

FloristWare spoke with florists that depend on this kind of recurring business and built exactly the kind of standing order management system they wanted.

 

Standing Orders That Are Easy To Create, Edit & Update

As much as florists may want more standing orders they generally don't come around that often. That is a problem because most floral POS systems use a completely different process for standing orders. Then, when they do come along, nobody in the shop remembers exactly how to do it. Instead they end up doing it on paper... the very method they wanted to get away from and improve on. And editing and updating recurring orders is even harder, often forcing the florists to recreate them from scratch.

FloristWare makes it easy by using the exact same interface as for any other order. Anybody that can create, edit or update a standard flower delivery order in FloristWare knows how to create, edit and update a standing order. There is nothing new to learn.

 

Standing Orders That Are Easy To Schedule & Extend

Florists using other flower shop management systems told us it was cumbersome to select and edit fulfillment dates. In some cases they had to use "rules" like "the first Tuesday of each month" that inevitably created conflicts, scheduling a standing order delivery for (example) Christmas Day. With no easy way to override that they were never confidant these orders would be filled. And other systems require the florist to enter dates in a particular format and/or manage lists of dates.

FloristWare makes it easy to schedule your standing orders by presenting you with a calendar, and you just click the dates when you want to fill. This makes it easy to avoid conflicts, and FloristWare will even indicate any days when your shop is closed. Removing/changing fill dates is just as easy – just click the date again.

 

Never Miss A Subscription/Standing Order In Your Flower Shop

The nightmare scenario when it comes to standing orders is missing one. You work so hard to land a customer that is prepared to commit to regular flower deliveries, presumably because it is very important to them, and you alienate them by forgetting one.

FloristWare keeps your upcoming standing orders front and center so the people responsible won't miss them.

 

Collect Payment For Your Standing Orders Quickly & Easily

With FloristWare your standing orders can easily be charged to a credit card stored securely on file, or charged to a house account that lets you take advantage of all of our advanced receivables features that are essential to florists.

 

Never Forget To Extend A Standing Order

Other POS systems make it easy to forget to extend standing orders – once you fill and deliver the last order it doesn't alert you to that.

FloristWare makes sure you know, well in advance, that the last scheduled subscription or standing order is approaching. That gives you plenty of time to schedule more.

 

Proper Accounting For Standing Orders

Some flower shops deal with standing orders by entering them all at once and charging them to an account, then taking payment after each one is filled. It's a hack that creates a number of problems and, since most other floral POS systems don't even let you enter multiple orders in a single sale, not a very convenient one.

This also creates an accounting problem. Sales are being recorded long before the orders are actually filled, putting revenue and expenses completely out of whack. The period where you enter the orders looks wildly profitable because sales are high and expenses are low. Meanwhile the period where you are just filling the orders looks distressingly unprofitable – now costs are high while sales are low.

All this makes it very hard to get a handle on how your floral business is really doing and your accountant is probably billing you for the extra hours it takes to make sense of it all! You also front load your sales tax obligation, paying tax long before you actually collect it.

FloristWare gets the accounting right. No matter when you enter the standing orders, they accrue and are attributed to the period when they are actually filled. It will give you a much more accurate perspective of how your flower shop is doing.

 

FloristWare puts the magic back in standing orders. It makes them easy to deal with so your flower shop can enjoy the recurring revenue they bring in.

We'd love to hear more about your shop, how you handle standing orders and whether there might be a fit. Please give us a call at 888.531.3012 x2 or schedule a demo.

 

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