Drupal and Ubercart - Add order that customer can pay for online? Bill customer's order without having them manually put it in their cart?

Question

I am configuring a rental website to manage real estate property using Drupal and Ubercart.

This site will need to accept rental payments, and IN ADDITION, will need to allow the admin to add extra billing to certain people, for fees, and certain other kinds of things. If they for example, put a huge hole in a wall, and have to pay, or something like that.

The problem is that order creation does not seem to allow me to add that item to their cart, or give them any option to view the pending balance and make a payment on it.

Am I missing something? Is there any way to bill someone and let them pay that bill in the same way they check out?

I could see additional uses for this kind of functionality, in setting up a site to sell services, the price of which is not fixed, and being able to bill customers with an invoice and then let them checkout through the site.

THANKS! I really need some help on this one!

Answer 1

I'm running into the same problem with 'create order'. One possible workaround i'm looking at is to create a product especially for this user. This product will probably need to be a new content type that'll be assigned to the user (either by user reference or by setting the node author).

This special product can be made available to the user via a block.

Answer 2

You know, we are looking at the same thing, actually. Here is what I think: what you are doing is unsupported.

Here's why: there is a different paradigm for what you (and I) are wanting to do that goes beyond what current Drupal modules handle in regards to making payments. e-Commerce and Ubercart handle payments for transactions. You are paying them for a specific item or service that is delivered or downloaded.

Rent is done not on a transactional basis, but on an account basis. And to my knowledge, Drupal doesn't have any module that handles the different workflow that comes with account-based billing.

Answer 3

I'm looking to do the same thing -- create an order for customer checkout. Haven't figured out the best approach to this--but there are several things that might help your situation--

1. Cart Links. The Cart Links module allows you to create a link that adds items to a cart, complete with attributes. You can create a link for your customer to follow, and they'll end up with a cart with each product and attribute as set in your link, and then proceed through a normal checkout.

However, I'm stuck because I want to add a text attribute, and haven't figured out how to get custom text in for a customer--you can select an option for an attribute, but not arbitrary text.

1. uc_recurring probably takes care of your need for ongoing billing. It will create a new order with a single recurring product at a specified interval. That can definitely be done--though there's only support for a handful of payment gateways.

2. Create an order -- you can do this through the admin back end, and receive payment as an admin. Customers can view the order, too--but I'm not finding how I can have them proceed through the checkout (where I want them to view and accept terms...)

Cheers, John