Home / Settings / Box Deadlines
CSAware uses two different deadlines to help you process your deliveries for a given date: an order deadline and a final deadline. These deadlines are most critical for farms using recurring (weekly) billing for their subscriptions and/or selling add-ons that are billed weekly. We highly recommend consulting your account manager before making any changes to your deadlines. DO NOT adjust deadlines once deliveries have started; please contact your account manager for help with this.
Note: the official “Delivery Day” is designated as 12:01 AM on the day of delivery. All calculated deadline times are based on this starting point.
Order Deadline (for the member):
The Order Deadline is the cut-off point at which subscribers can use CSAware to modify their boxes (customize, place a new subscription, order add-on items, reschedule or put their box on hold). After this point in time is designated by the farmer, all boxes for a particular delivery day become closed to any further modification by the buyer. NOTE: Farmers will still have the option to be able to make changes on their members' behalf (until final deadline--see below).
There are two ways to set your Order Deadline. You may create a single deadline in the week before the delivery date, which applies to all delivery days, such as "Saturday at midnight". The second option is to create a rolling deadline, which designates different and unique order deadlines for each individual delivery day, such as "72 hours before delivery day".
Final Deadline (for the farmer):
The Final Deadline is the moment in time after which all CSA boxes and delivery details are “set in stone.” No changes are allowed to any deliveries after the Final Deadline. Signup sheets, packing lists, and other production and delivery documents become available for printout right after the Final Deadline.
What happens BETWEEN the Order Deadline and the Final Deadline?:
If you are using auto-billing in your setup, all payments due are automatically debited from the buyers' credit cards immediately after the Order Deadline. Some people's payments may not get processed because their credit card has expired or reached the credit limit; in these cases you can choose to be alerted to any unprocessed payments. Customers can also receive an automatic email notifying them that their payment did not go through (see article on Mail Triggers) . These members will have until Final Deadline to make a successful payment in order to be placed back on your delivery list for the week.
CSAware re-evaluates new/updated member credit card information hourly. After a member whose credit card was rejected re-enters their credit card information, CSAware will notify the member and farmer using one of two messages. Either the new credit card information has been accepted, in which case they’ll be sent an email confirming the order. . . OR . . . if the new information is rejected again, the member will be sent another email notifying them that their payment did not go through.
How to Set Your Deadlines:
Use the Box Deadline entry form to assign your deadlines. We suggest you first determine the Final Deadline that will allow you to meet your box preparation and delivery schedule, followed by determining the Order Deadlines that provide a sufficient time to complete all financial transactions before the system locks down for production.
This first example demonstrates a rolling deadline before the delivery dates within a given week.
After you’ve completed the table and SAVED your entry, CSAware will calculate and display your customized deadlines based on each delivery day you’ve entered previously. As you can see, CSAware calculated the Order and Final Deadline for each delivery day based on the farmer’s choices of 48 hours before delivery for the order deadline and 12 hours before delivery for the final deadline. Please note that this farm also decided used the up/down arrow options to "shift" their deadlines back.
Review the calculated deadline information carefully. You can repeatedly adjust and save your rolling deadline criteria until you arrive at an optimal rolling deadline schedule for you and your members.
If you want to adjust any particular day’s rolling deadline, use the green arrow in the "Exceptions" column to shift an individual’s day's deadlines by one (or more) days. This adjustment feature is useful for grouping deadlines for different days together to simplify your deadline schedule. When you place your cursor over the upward green arrow, the rollover message “Shift rolling deadlines back by one day” appears. After you select to roll the deadline back, the box displays the message (shifted 1 day) reflecting how your deadlines were changed.
After rolling “back” a deadline, you are presented with an equivalent green arrow cursor which allows you to shift your rolling deadline ahead one day at a time. Note: You are ONLY able to shift the rolling deadline ahead up to its original deadline setting, not further in the future.
An example of a Single Deadline: Notice, as a second example, that if you had chosen a single day and time for the Order Deadline, CSAware will display that single deadline for every delivery day in your current delivery schedule. Once again, review and verify the resulting “Your Deadlines” chart for accuracy and usefulness for your farm. Adjust as needed.
