Franchise Staff Guide: Navigating Your Portal
Welcome to the Franchise Ordering Portal! As a Franchise Staff member, your account is optimized for day-to-day operations. Your primary workspace is designed to help you quickly browse live inventory, place new orders, and track deliveries without being cluttered by backend financial and administrative settings.
Note: If you need to pay an account, view full billing statements, or add new users, please contact your Franchise Owner, as those features are restricted to Owner accounts.
[Insert Screenshot: Full view of the Franchise Staff Dashboard]
1. Understanding Your Dashboard
Your Dashboard is your daily starting point. While you won't see the deep financial analytics that your Franchise Owner sees, you will still see critical alerts that affect your ability to place orders.
Account Trading Status
At the top of your dashboard, you will see an Account Trading Status badge. Because this portal is connected directly to Head Office, your ability to place orders depends on the franchise's financial standing.
- Good Standing (Green): You are clear to place orders as normal.
- Restricted (Red): If this badge turns red, it means the account has exceeded its credit limit, has overdue invoices older than 14 days, or has been placed "On Hold" by Head Office. If your account is restricted, you will not be able to check out. Please notify your Franchise Owner to resolve the account balance.
[Insert Screenshot: Close-up of the Account Trading Status badge on the staff dashboard]
Recent Activity
At the bottom of your dashboard, you have a quick-reference grid showing the most recent orders placed for your franchise, so you can easily see what is currently in transit.
2. Browsing & Placing Orders
To start a new order, click Place Order in the left-hand menu. This page serves as your live product catalog.
[Insert Screenshot: The Place Order catalog showing products and the search bar]
- Find Products: Use the category list on the left side to filter by department, or use the search bar at the top to find a specific Item Code or Description.
- Live Stock Availability: The portal connects directly to the central warehouse. If you try to add 20 items to your cart but only 10 are available, the system will immediately alert you.
- Add to Cart: Simply type the quantity you need into the box next to a product and click the Add to Cart button.
3. Reviewing Your Cart & Checkout
Once you have added everything you need, click My Cart in the sidebar to review your order.
[Insert Screenshot: The Cart page showing the item list and order summary]
Adjusting Your Order
On the cart page, you can review your items, change quantities (remember to click Update Cart if you change a number!), or click the red trash can icon to remove an item entirely.
Delivery vs. Collection
Before finalizing the order, you must choose how you want to receive the goods using the dropdown menu in the summary box:
- Delivery: The system will estimate a delivery date based on your standard delivery schedule.
- Collection: If your team is picking up the stock, select Collection. This will instantly send a priority alert to the dispatch team to prepare your items for pickup.
Placing the Order
Click Place Order to finalize. If the Franchise Account is in Good Standing, your order will be instantly injected into the Head Office system, and you will receive a success message with an official Reference Number (e.g., WEB-0000000123).
4. Tracking Orders & History
You have two tools in your sidebar to track your submissions and view historical data:
Web Orders
This page shows a history of every cart submitted online. It displays the date, the Web Order Reference number, and the total value. You can click the View button to open up the exact details of what was requested in that specific cart.
[Insert Screenshot: The Web Orders data table]
Sage History
This is the official record from Head Office. It shows every order processed for your franchise, whether you placed it online or if the Franchise Owner called it in manually. Use this page to check if an order is currently Unprocessed, Processed, or Cancelled by the warehouse.
[Insert Screenshot: The Sage History table showing order statuses]
