An unresolved online order in Altru means something went wrong between “the guest clicked buy” and “Altru recorded a finished sale.” The order exists, but nobody can say for sure whether it was paid. An occasional one is expected. A list that keeps getting longer is a sign that something upstream needs fixing, and a sign that your revenue, your capacity counts, and your guests’ tickets may all be slightly off.
This guide covers how to work through the backlog safely, in what order, and how to keep it from building up again.
What usually causes an unresolved order
The pattern is nearly always the same: the online form started a transaction, and the last step never came back cleanly. Common causes include:
- Abandoned checkouts. The guest got to payment and closed the tab, lost signal, or walked away.
- Session timeouts. The guest took too long on the payment step and the session expired partway through.
- Declines and retries. A card was declined, the guest tried again, and the first attempt was left hanging.
- Processor or connection hiccups. The payment went through at the processor, but the confirmation never made it back to Altru.
That last group is the one that matters most. Those guests were charged and may not have received tickets, or may show up holding a confirmation email that your records can’t match.
Before you touch anything
Resist the urge to bulk-cancel. Cancelling an order that was actually paid creates a worse problem than the one you started with: a charged guest with no ticket and a deposit that doesn’t reconcile. Do these first:
- Export or save the current list. Keep a copy of every unresolved order with its date, amount, constituent, and items, so you have a record of what you started with.
- Pull the matching payment activity from your processor. Use your payment processor’s transaction report for the same date range. That report, not Altru, is the source of truth for whether money actually moved.
- Talk to finance. If anyone has already adjusted deposits or batches to account for missing sales, you need to know before you complete those orders and double-count the revenue.
Sort the backlog into three piles
Match each unresolved order against the processor report by amount, date, time, and the guest’s name or email. Every order lands in one of three groups.
1. Paid at the processor, not finished in Altru
These come first. The guest has been charged. Work out whether the order can be completed in Altru so the sale, the tickets, and the payment all land properly. If you can’t complete it directly, record the sale another way that ties to the existing charge rather than charging the guest a second time. If you aren’t sure what your Altru setup allows after the fact, try it on a test order in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before working the real list. Then make sure the guest has valid tickets or membership. A short personal note explaining that the order didn’t finish on your end, with the tickets attached, heads off a confused call or a chargeback.
2. Not paid anywhere
No matching charge, no authorization. These are abandoned or failed attempts and can usually be cancelled or cleared. Before you do, check whether a later, successful order from the same guest exists. Duplicates like this are common after declines, and you don’t want to email someone about an order they already completed ten minutes later.
3. Unclear
Partial matches, authorizations that were never settled, amounts that don’t line up. Set these aside and work them one at a time. If a pattern shows up here, such as many orders from the same day or the same form, that’s worth a ticket with Blackbaud support, along with a few example order numbers.
Check capacity and timed tickets
Depending on how your online sales are set up, an unresolved order may still be holding inventory. For timed entry and capped programs, that can mean slots that look sold out on your website but were never paid for. After clearing a batch of unpaid orders, spot-check a few affected dates and confirm that availability has returned as you expect. If it hasn’t, confirm with Blackbaud support how your version handles held capacity on unresolved orders before you start adjusting counts by hand.
Stop the list from growing again
Clearing the backlog is a one-time job. Keeping it clear is a habit.
- Review on a schedule. A short daily or twice-weekly check is far easier than a quarterly cleanup, and guests who were charged hear from you within a day instead of a month.
- Give it one owner. When everyone can resolve orders, nobody does. Assign it to one person, with a named backup.
- Watch for clusters. A spike on a particular day often lines up with a processor outage, a form change, or a high-demand release. Note the dates; they help support diagnose the cause.
- Review the checkout itself. Long forms, slow payment pages, and confusing error messages all push guests into retries and abandoned sessions. Test your own online purchase on a phone, start to finish, at least once a season.
- Write down the process. Which report to pull, how to match, what to do with each pile, who emails the guest. When the owner is on vacation, the backup shouldn’t have to guess.
Quick answers
Can I just delete all of them?
Not safely. Any order that was charged at the processor needs to be finished or properly accounted for first. Clear only the ones you’ve confirmed were never paid.
Why does Altru show a sale my processor doesn’t, or the reverse?
The two systems record different moments. The processor records the charge; Altru records the completed order. When the hand-off between them fails, they disagree, and that disagreement is exactly what an unresolved order is.
How far back should I go?
As far as the list goes, but prioritize recent paid orders first. Those guests may still be planning a visit with tickets you can’t scan.
