Before Orders & Inventory adds a line to an order, it checks whether the buyer can buy it, whether enough inventory is available, and whether the buyer has reached a purchase limit. This article explains those checks separately from pricing.
Eligibility Criteria
A product can have eligibility criteria that control who can buy it. When criteria are set up, Orders & Inventory checks the person the line is for, which is not always the person who pays.
This matters most for event registrations. If someone places an order to register another person for an event, Rhythm checks the registrant’s eligibility, so the registration can be refused even when the person placing and paying for the order is eligible.
If a line is billed to an organization and does not name an individual as the actual buyer, there may be no person to check, so Rhythm does not evaluate the criteria for that line. If a product with eligibility criteria seems to allow an ineligible purchase, check whether the order named an individual registrant or was placed only on behalf of an organization.
Eligibility criteria can use organization data instead of the individual buyer’s data. A rule can use the option For contacts, apply this rule to the organization to which the contact belongs, which checks the related organization’s membership status or membership type rather than the contact’s own, including during Portal checkout. A rule can also use the organization’s Type field on its CRM record instead of a membership type, so eligibility follows an organization attribute rather than membership. Use organization-based criteria when non-members should qualify because of something about their organization, and use a membership-based rule when only certain member types should be able to buy. Because an organization-based rule depends on that field being filled in, a blank Type value on the purchaser’s organization can block an otherwise-qualified buyer. If a purchase is refused unexpectedly, check that field on the organization record before assuming the rule is wrong.
A product can also block purchase in a specific foreign currency, separate from how its price is calculated in that currency. If a buyer checks out in a currency the product blocks, Rhythm refuses the purchase for that reason, not because of pricing.
The eligibility rule builder does not include every contact field. Contact address fields, such as state, are not available there, though some related fields, such as a membership’s state, are available. When a rule genuinely needs a field the builder does not expose, use an expression as the documented alternative.
You do not have to place an order to confirm eligibility. You can check whether a specific contact or organization meets a set of eligibility criteria directly, which is useful before someone attempts a purchase.
Tip
If a buyer could purchase something before but is refused now, the product’s eligibility criteria may have changed since the earlier purchase. Compare the order history for the earlier purchase with the product’s audit log. If the log shows no eligibility restriction at the time of that order, and criteria were added afterward, that explains the change without anything being wrong today.
Purchase Limits
A product can have a purchase limit, which caps how much one buyer can purchase in total or within a sliding time window. This limit applies per buyer, not across all sales of the product. For example, a limit of 14 stops one contact from buying more than 14, but it does not stop the product from selling more than 14 units overall.
A few details affect how Rhythm counts purchases toward the limit:
- Every past order counts toward the limit regardless of its current status, including an order that was later voided, cancelled, or returned. If a buyer returned a product, that purchase can still block them from buying it again because it still counts toward the limit.
- Rhythm checks a new order against the buyer’s already-completed orders. If two lines for the same product are placed in one order, each line is checked only against the buyer’s past orders, not against the other line. Because of that, one order can add up to more than the configured limit even though each line would pass on its own.
Tip
If a purchase limit is not stopping a sale the way you expected, confirm that the buyer’s earlier order finished processing. The limit is tested against completed past orders, so if the two orders happened close together, make sure the first order had fully gone through before the second was submitted.
Stock, Sold-Out Products, and Variant Combinations
For merchandise that tracks inventory, Orders & Inventory checks whether enough stock is available before allowing a line through. If the product is sold out and does not accept backorders, Rhythm refuses the line. Stock is not set aside while a shopper views a product or keeps it in a cart; it is committed only when an order is placed. Because of that, two shoppers can both see the last unit as available, and one can be refused when they try to check out.
A merchandise item with options, such as size and color, tracks stock separately for each combination through its stock-keeping unit (SKU). The buyer’s selected combination must match a real SKU. Option values are matched loosely, ignoring case, spaces, and dashes, but any other difference makes the combination unavailable. This means a product can be sold out for the combination you checked while stock still exists under a different SKU for the same product. Check the specific combination’s stock, not just the product’s overall stock.
In some cases, a merchandise item with variant options has shown this unavailable-combination message even though its configuration looked correct and the combination should have resolved to a real SKU. If you have confirmed that the option values map to a real SKU and the message persists, treat it as a possible product-side issue and contact Support rather than continuing to adjust the variant configuration.
You can check a merchandise item’s availability without placing an order. This is useful for a storefront product page or for confirming stock before you take an order over the phone.
Duplicate Event Registrations
An order can be refused if it would register a contact for an event they are already registered for or already awaiting approval for. A cancelled or declined registration does not count as still registered, so the same contact can register again after cancelling. This check looks at the registrant only when the line names a contact. If a registration line is for an organization and no individual is named, there is no person to check.
In some cases, this check has continued to fire because of leftover draft order or registration records on the contact, even after only one real registration should remain. If a contact appears to have a single active registration but is still refused as a duplicate, look for extra draft records on their history and remove them.
Checking Before You Sell
You can run some of these checks on their own, specifically eligibility and merchandise availability, without placing an order. Use them when you want to confirm in advance that a purchase will go through instead of finding out during checkout that an order is refused.