Offset allows admin users to process orders without collecting a credit card payment at the time of checkout. This is done using the Offline / Pay Later option on the final page of the order flow. This article covers how to use that feature, its limitations, and what to expect in your accounting reports.
NOTE: Many wineries that need to manage Offline orders, particularly for wholesale or trade accounts, find it cleaner to keep credit card orders in Offset and create Offline invoices directly in QuickBooks. This approach keeps your two billing workflows clearly separated and reduces complexity in your Offset accounting reports.
What Is Offline / Pay Later?
The Offline / Pay Later feature is an admin-only tool, meaning it cannot be used by a customer placing an order on your website. It is intended for situations where payment will be collected outside of Offset, for example via cash, check, or wire transfer.
Common use cases include:
Trade and wholesale orders with payment terms (e.g., to retailers or restaurants)
Allocation orders where a check or wire is expected
Sample or comp orders are being tracked for inventory purposes
Tasting room cash transactions recorded for fulfillment purposes
IMPORTANT: Offset and Stripe have no way of knowing when funds for these orders are deposited into your bank account. You will need to manually verify payment through your own bank records and then mark the order as Paid in Offset once funds are received.
Placing an Offline / Pay Later Order
Build the order as you normally would from the Dashboard, the Customer Account Page, or the Orders page
On the final checkout page, check the box for Offline / Pay Later instead of selecting a credit card
Complete the order
The order will be created in Unpaid status and will appear in the Unpaid section of your Dashboard
Marking an Order as Paid
Once you have received the cash, check, or confirmed the wire transfer:
Open the order and scroll to the Billing section
Select Pay this Order
Review the amounts in the pop-up — you can adjust the subtotal, shipping, or tax if needed (for example, to apply a negotiated credit or correct the shipping amount)
Select the payment method (Cash / Check) and confirm
IMPORTANT: Orders marked as Offline / Pay Later will remain in Unpaid status on your Dashboard until you manually complete this step. Simply receiving payment does not update the order as Offset has no way to know when the payment has been recieved, so you must mark it as Paid in Offset.
Paying an Unpaid Order with a Credit Card
If a customer originally agreed to pay by check or wire but later provides a credit card, you can still process a credit card payment on an Unpaid order as long as the order has not yet been marked as Paid.
Open the order, go to the Billing section, and select Pay this Order. Choose the credit card option from the payment method dropdown.
Limitations to Be Aware Of
Editing offline orders is limited. Once an order is processed as Offline / Pay Later, you generally cannot edit product quantities. If you need to make significant changes before marking it as Paid, you may need to cancel and re-create the order.
Cancelled orders may still show as Unpaid. If an Offline / Pay Later order is cancelled before being marked as Paid, it will continue to display as Unpaid on your Dashboard. Some accounting teams want to see the dollar amount remain; others prefer to zero it out. Contact Offset support if you need the balance cleared.
PayPal, Venmo, and similar payment platforms are not supported. If a customer pays via a third-party platform outside of Offset, you can mark the order as Offline / Pay Later and handle the payment separately, but that transaction will not appear in your Offset reporting.
IMPORTANT: Coordinate with your on-site staff, fulfillment company, accounting team, and ShipCompliant (if applicable) on how to manage offline orders. Key items to align on include:
How cash, check, or offline payments get deposited into your bank account
How to account for unpaid orders that may span months, quarters, or years, which can affect taxes and reporting
Whether your fulfillment company will hold or release orders that have not yet been paid
What Appears in Your Accounting Reports
Offline / Pay Later orders contribute to the Mismatched Inventory to Payment Transactions line item in the Accounting Report > Sales by Channel, All report. This line item tracks orders where inventory was applied but no credit card transaction exists in Stripe to match it.
This line item is not an accounts receivable tracker. It does not decrease as you collect and mark payments. If you process an Offline / Pay Later order and later mark it as Paid via cash or check, the same dollar amount will remain in the Mismatched line item. This is because it is tracking the total value of orders paid outside of Stripe for the selected date range, not the outstanding balance.
To learn more, read the article titled Mismatched Inventory to Payment Transactions.
Bulk Offline Orders
If you need to process a large number of Offline / Pay Later orders at once (for example, a corporate gifting batch or a wholesale run), you can use the Bulk Orders tool. See the Bulk Orders Feature article for full details.