There are a number of reasons why you might want to accept payments when a site visitor fills out a form. Service businesses charging for an appointment, reservations or tickets to an event such as a conference, or donations (even recurring donations!). For example, as you may know, I run a scout related website (CyberbaseTradingPost.com) where one of the main features is the ability to create and print custom certificates. After the certificate is created, I give people the opportunity to make a donation if they found it useful. Another site that one of my customers runs provides week-long retreats, complete with accomodations. When they make their reservations to attend one of these retreats, they must make a deposit to insure they are going to show up. Collecting payments along with the reservation is required. And of course if you have any type of subscription program, collecting recurring payments is a must. All of this can be done using a plugin called WPForms.
Here then are the steps necessary to create a form with payment options using WPForms.
Step 1: Create a Simple Order Form in WordPress
The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin.
Next, go to WPForms » Add New to create a new form.
On the setup screen, name your form and select the Billing/Order form template.
Next, you’ll want to modify what items are available to order.
To do this, scroll down to the “Available Items” section in the preview screen on the right and click on it.
This will open up the “Field Options” in the left panel. Here you can rename the field, add or remove order items, and change the prices.
If you want to give people images to choose from when filling out your online order form, click on the Use image choices checkbox in the Form Editor.
When you do this, you’ll be able to upload images to go alongside your items, giving people a visual look at what they’re ordering.
Lastly, you can add additional fields to your order form by dragging them from the left hand side to the right hand side.
Click Save when you’re done.
Step 2: Configure Your Order Form Notifications
There are two settings to configure in your simple order form. The first is the Notifications setting. Notifications are a great way to send an email when your form is submitted.
You can send an email notification to yourself, which WPForms does automatically unless you disable form notifications. You can also send a notification to a member of your team by adding their email to the Send to Email Address field.
In addition, if you use smart tags, you can even send a form notification to a customer to let them know their order has been received.
Let’s take a look at how to set up one form notification that will be sent out to a customer after they submit an order form on your website.
Start by clicking on the Settings tab in the Form Builder and then click Notifications.
Next, you’ll want to customize which email address will receive a notification when a new order is submitted.
To include the email address of the person that filled out the online order form, which is your customer, click Show Smart Tags in the Send To Email Address field.
Click on Email so WPForms knows to send a notification to the email address that was entered on the order form submission.
Next, you can change your notification’s email subject to be more specific. In addition, you can customize the “From Name”, “From Email”, and “Reply-To” emails.
And don’t forget to include a personalized message if the email is going to anyone but yourself.
If you want to include all of the information found in the form fields of the submitted order form, use the {all_fields} smart tag.
By changing these fields, you’ll know that whoever receives the email notification will know exactly what the notification is for and who it came from.
Step 3: Configure Your Order Form Confirmations
The second setting to configure deals with form confirmations. Form confirmations are messages that display for customers once they submit an order form.
There are three confirmation types you can choose from:
- Message. This is the default confirmation type in WPForms. When a customer submits an order form, a simple message confirmation will appear letting them know their form was processed.
- Show Page. This confirmation type will take customers to a specific web page on your site thanking them for their order.
- Go to URL (Redirect). This option is used when you want to send customers to a different website.
Let’s see how to set up a simple form confirmation in WPForms so you can customize the message users will see after submitting their orders.
First, click on the Confirmation tab in the Form Editor under Settings.
Next, select the type of confirmation type you’d like to create. For this example, we’ll select Message.
Then, customize the confirmation message to your liking, and click Save when you’re done.
Step 4: Configure the Payment Settings
Lastly, you’ll need to configure the payment settings for your order form by connecting to your payment provider so you can collect online payments from customers.
WPForms integrates with both the PayPal and Stripe payment gateways for accepting payments.
To configure the payments settings on your order form, you’ll first have to install and activate the right payment addon.
In our example, we’ll set up PayPal to process orders.
After clicking PayPal, you’ll need to enter your PayPal email address, select the Production mode, choose Products and Services, and adjust other settings as needed.
After you’re done configuring the payment settings, click Save to store your changes.
Now you’re ready to add your simple order form on your site.
Step 5: Add Your Simple Order Form to Your Site
WPForms allows you to add your forms to many places on your website like blog posts, pages, and your sidebar (widget-ready areas).
First let’s take a look at the most common post / page embed option.
Start by creating a new post or page in WordPress and then click on the Add Form button.
Then, select your simple order form from the dropdown menu and click Add Form.
Next, publish your post or page so your order form will appear on your website.
Now you can view your published order form live on your site. Notice when you select items on your form the price changes automatically.
You now know how to create a simple order form in WordPress that accepts online payments using WPForms. This might just be the answer for your wholesale order forms, event booking forms, and other types of forms where you need to collect payment. Please reach out to me if you need help with any of this.
Greg Jameson has been writing blog articles on ecommerce and internet marketing for over 10 years. Learn more about Greg at https://webstoresltd.com/about/
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