How to customize WooCommerce order numbers

Auto-generate custom WooCommerce order numbers using prefix, suffix, and order date. You can append predefined date formats as prefixes or suffixes.

The plugin gives provision to create separate sequential order for free orders. For ease of management, you can have these orders separated from the major order sequence and create a sequence for free orders alone.

Auto-reset order numbers on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis to easily estimate the number of orders placed on a particular period.

You can generate odd or even-numbered order sequences with a custom increment counter.

• First of all, install and activate the plugin, head on to WooCommerce > Settings from your WordPress dashboard.
• Open the Sequential order number Pro tab.
  OR
• Go to Settings page directly from plugin page after installation.

Following is the Sequential order number settings window. You can configure the settings as per your preference.

The sequential order number settings are categorized into three sections:

• Customize order number format
• Free order number format
• General settings

Select an order number format with a combination of number, prefix, or date.

Choose an appropriate order number format from the drop-down. Based on your selection, the plugin will populate subsequent fields.

For instance, select the option [Prefix][Date][Number][Suffix] to populate following fields.

The prefix will appear at the beginning of the order number. For eg, if you enter ‘wt-‘ as the prefix then your order number will begin with wt-.

The order date will appear after the prefix. Pick any of the date formats from the list of pre-defined formats as given below:

Select one or more date formats and use alphanumeric characters to separate them.

For example,

• Pick the date format [y]/[m]/[d] separated by ‘/’ to get the order date format as 21/07/28.
• Choose [F] to have present month as date preix.

The suffix will appear at the end of the order number. For eg, if you enter ‘-wt’ as the prefix then your order number will end with -wt.

Maintains a fixed length for order number padded with ‘0’ excluding prefix or suffix. For example, entering order number length as 7 with order number 123 and prefix ‘wt’ will generate a sequential order number as wt0000123.

Here you can add a custom starting number for your store’s order number.

Preview your custom order number with the newly input prefixes/suffixes and date formats to know how it will appear for WooCommerce orders.

Enable to set separate sequence for free orders.

Free orders are orders having zero sub-total. Such orders can be generated when you offer coupons or discounts. For ease of management, you can have these orders separated from the major order sequence and create a sequence for free orders alone.

For example, you can set the prefix ‘free’ for all free orders of your store.

Following are some of the common settings:

The order number sequence will be incremented by this value. For eg, if 2 is given, the order sequence will be 2, 4, 6, etc.

Resets order number sequence based on the selected interval. If monthly is chosen, the order sequence will start a new sequence at the beginning of each month. 

For example, if you set auto-reset every month, you will have your order numbers in the sequence 1JAN2021, 2JAN2021, 3JAN2021, and so on in January, and the plugin automatically resets this, to begin with, 1FEB2021 the next month.

This feature allows you to easily estimate the number of orders placed on a daily/monthly/yearly basis.

Enabling this option will change starting number and/or prefix for all the existing and new orders in your store. If unchecked, it will only apply to the new orders.

Enable the track order option to track the sequential order number. Insert the below-given shortcode to track orders.

[woocommerce_order_tracking]

WooCommerce offers this shortcode to link orders based on the order ID. You can add this shortcode as a post and use to track the orders.

Following is a screenshot of the order tracking page on a website created using the shortcode.

By entering the order ID and billing email corresponding to a specific order, you can view all the details regarding the order.

You need to enable this option for searching plugin-generated orders from the WooCommerce orders page. If you disable it you will not be able to search custom order numbers from the orders page.

Finally, click on the Save Settings button. As a result, the store’s order numbers will be updated.

Following is a screenshot of an order page containing sequential orders.

In the below screenshot, the values assigned for each field are as shown below:

• Starting number – 100
• Order number format – [Prefix][Date][Number]
• Prefix – WT
• Order date format – ‘[Y]-‘ Current year (2021) with a hyphen as separator
• Order number length – 6

To sum up, if order management takes up a lot of your time, then the plugin will be helpful in making it easier for you. If you are dealing with lots of orders in your store on a daily basis, you can save time tracking orders quickly.