Payments & COD risk

The one setting

Dashboard → Payments → When to ask for an advance. One choice switches the whole behaviour:

Below it: how much (a fixed amount, or a share of the order — 30% is the typical share) and the account details shared with customers — your bank or wallet line, sent to the customer when an advance is requested. You can also set your delivery charge and a free-above threshold here; the charge is added to every order and written onto the Shopify order as a shipping line, so your AI orders total the same as your website's.

Who counts as risky

Risk is judged from that phone number's own order history in your store — deliveries, returns, refused parcels — never from anything demographic. The rules are yours:

• Return rate — above your threshold (default 40%, only once they have real history) → advance.
• Refused parcels — your count of refused COD deliveries (default 2) → advance.
• New customer — optionally treat first-time buyers as risky; off by default.
• Order value — optionally force an advance at or above an amount.
• A shaky address — an address that fails validation twice becomes an advance ask, so a fake address costs the customer, not you.

The advance flow, end to end

1. The ask

   The agent quotes the advance and your account details, and asks for a screenshot when paid. The order sits in Awaiting advance — it expires on its own after 36 hours if nothing comes, with a reminder in between.

2. The slip

   Any image the customer sends while an advance is pending is treated as the payment slip. It is read automatically (amount, reference, method) — as a convenience, never as proof — and lands in your verification queue. Slips sent in an Instagram DM are handled the same way, and your staff WhatsApp — the forward-to number you set under Business → Your shop details — gets a ping with the slip attached.

3. Your check

   Inbox → Payments tab: the screenshot, what the slip claims, what you asked for. The screen says it plainly: "A screenshot is easy to fake. Check your bank before you approve — nothing here is proof." Type how much actually arrived and press Money received — or Not received, which tells the customer and re-arms the wait. (Dashboard → Payments carries the same queue with plain Approve / Reject buttons — the amount box lives in the Inbox.)

4. The order becomes real

   On approval the order is created (in Shopify, with the advance recorded on it) and the customer is told: order booked, the remaining balance is due on delivery. The verified amount you typed — not the slip's claim — is what reduces the cash the courier collects.