create an online order form

February 9, 2022

What is a Paperless Business Form? (+ How to Make One)

Do you want to create digital forms for your business to reduce paper use?

Paperless business forms are digital forms that help save money and time. You can reach a larger audience with online forms and waste less paper.

In this article, we’ll show you what is a paperless business form and how to make it.

What are Paperless Business Forms?

A paperless business form is a digital form that your users can fill out on your WordPress website. Users can use their computers, smartphones, or tablets to fill out the form at anytime and from anywhere.

Business these days are ditching the use of paper forms and instead opting for digital forms. This helps them create a paperless environment.

Going paperless has many benefits:

Reach a Larger Audience: Digital forms can help you reach audiences from different locations. There are no geographic restrictions or delays in getting responses from people in different countries.
Easy to Access: People can access your paperless business form using any device and fill out the details from anywhere.
Get Instant Responses & Save Time: Paperless forms help you save time and you get to see instant responses. Unlike paper forms where you’d have to wait for responses to arrive by mail, digital forms make the process faster.
Cost Saving: Using digital forms also helps you save tons of money on paper, printing equipment, and mailing fees.
Good for the Environment: Going paperless has a positive impact on the environment. You can help conserve trees, prevent deforestation, and reduce waste.

Now, what are some of the ways you use paperless forms?

When Can You Use Paperless Forms for Your Business?

There are multiple ways you can turn your paper based forms into digital forms.

If you need to get in touch with your consumers, then you can create an online contact form and add it to your website. This way, you can get suggestions, feedback, and resolve your users’ queries.

Another way to use paperless business forms is by accepting job applications online. Instead of asking applicants to submit physical copies of their resumes, they can simply upload them using your digital form. It also helps in streamlining your hiring process and removes unnecessary paperwork.

If you’re running an online store, then you can create paperless order forms. Customers can fill out the details in the order form, place their orders, and pay online.

You can also create digital registration forms for an upcoming event like a webinar or conference.

That said, let’s look at how you can easily create a paperless digital form in WordPress.

Creating a Paperless Business Form in WordPress

The best way to add paperless forms business forms in WordPress is by using WPForms. It’s the best contact form plugin for WordPress and used by over 5 million professionals.

With WPForms, you get a drag and drop form builder that makes it super easy to customize your form. Plus, the plugin offers different templates so you can quickly get started and create all kinds of forms.

For this tutorial, let’s create a digital conference registration form. We’ll be using the WPForms Lite version because it’s 100% free. There is also WPForms Pro version that offers more customization options, templates, and powerful addons.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head over to WPForms from the WordPress admin panel and then click the ‘Add New’ button.

On the next screen, you’ll see the form builder.

To start, go ahead and enter a name for your form at the top.

After that, scroll down and select the ‘Conference Registration Form’ template.

Simply hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Choose conference registration form template

Next, you can customize your form using the drag and drop builder. WPForms offers different fields that you can add to your form.

Simply drag a field from the given options on your left and drop them where you’d like to add it to the form.

In the Lite version, you get can add line text, paragraph text, dropdown menu, multiple choice, checkboxes, and more.

However, if you require fancy fields like phone number, password, address, or a file upload option, then we recommend using the WPForms Pro version.

Besides that, you can further customize existing fields in the template. For example, if you click the ‘Name’ field, you’ll see more options in the menu on your left. For instance, you can edit the label, format, and more.

Next, you can go to the ‘Settings’ tab from the menu.

Here, you can change the settings for your form. Under the General settings, you can edit the form name, add a description, change the submit button text, and more.

After that, you can go to the Notifications settings and edit the send to email address on which you’ll receive an email when someone submits a form.

There are also settings for changing the subject line, from name, from email, and more.

Lastly, you can also change the Confirmation settings in WPForms. This is the message that people will see when they submit a form.

You can show a message, show a landing page, or direct users to another URL.

For more details, check out our guide on how to send confirmation emails after WordPress form submission.

Optionally, you can also click on the Marketing tab on the left to connect your form to different marketing services, such as your email service provider.

You can even integrate your form with meeting or webinar software such as Zoom, or create other automated workflows to save time.

Once you’re done with the settings, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top and exit the form builder.

Next, you can add your form to any WordPress post or page.

To start, simply edit or add a new page or post. When you’re in the WordPress content editor, click the ‘+’ button and add the ‘WPForms’ block.

After that, you’ll see a dropdown menu in the WPForms block.

Here you can select your conference registration form.

Now, publish or update your page.

Then you can visit your website to see the paperless conference registration form in action.

We hope this article helped you learn what is a paperless business form and how to make it. You may also want to see our guide on how much it costs to build a WordPress website, or our expert pick of the best HR payroll software for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What is a Paperless Business Form? (+ How to Make One) first appeared on WPBeginner.

April 4, 2020

How to Set Up Online Food Ordering for Restaurants in WordPress

Do you want to set up online food ordering for your restaurant? Whether it’s a brand new venture, or you’ve been serving customers in person for years, offering food delivery can help boost your profits.

Setting up an online food ordering service may sound too technical. The good news is that it is quite easy to set up.

In this guide, we will share how to setup online food ordering for restaurants using WordPress, step by step.

What You Need to Set up Online Food Ordering

You will need a website to set up online food ordering for your restaurant.

If you don’t have a website yet, don’t worry. You can easily start a website using WordPress, which is the best website builder in the world used by millions of small businesses.

Creating a website isn’t going to eat too much into your profit margin, either. Bluehost, one of WordPress’s recommended hosting providers, is offering our readers a great deal.

Basically, you can get a free domain name, free SSL, and a 60% off discount on web hosting.

→ Click Here to Get this Exclusive Bluehost Deal ←

Transparency Disclaimer: WPBeginner content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of the links in this post, we may earn a small referral fee. Please know that we only recommend products that we use ourselves and/or believe will add value to our readers. See how WPBeginner is funded for more details.

There are loads of great WordPress themes for restaurants available. A theme is like a template for your website. Choosing a good one will help your site look professional and reputable, encouraging customers to order from you.

If you need some help setting up your website, take a look at our comprehensive step by step guide on how to start a website.

Adding Online Food Ordering to Your Website

Once you’ve got your WordPress website set up, you can easily add an online form so that customers can order food.

Now there are multiple ways to do this with WordPress.

However, the easiest way to do this is by using WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder and allows you to easily create online forms on your website (no coding required).

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out our full instructions on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on WPForms website.

You’ll then want to install the ‘Form Templates Pack’ addon to make it as easy as possible to create your form. Note that you’ll need the ‘Pro’ level of WPForms to use this template.

To install the addon, go to WPForms » Addons. Scroll down to find the ‘Form Templates Pack Addon’ then click ‘Install Addon’ beneath it.

Next, go to WPForms » Add New page in your WordPress dashboard to create your online food ordering form.

Type in a name for your form. You can call it whatever makes sense to you. Customers won’t see this title unless you want them to.

Next, scroll down the screen to the section titled ‘Additional Templates’ and select the ‘Takeout Order Form’. There are quite a lot of templates, so you might want to search for it.

Click on the template and your form will be automatically created for you.

As you can see, this form is designed for pizza takeout. You can change it in any way you want, though. Simply click on a field (a part of the form) to edit it.

We’re going to edit the ‘What type of pizza would you like?’ field at the top of the form.

You can change the label for the field. This is the question or prompt for the customer to answer. You can also change the choices and remove or add them using the (+) and (-) buttons.

You can also add more fields to your form. For instance, you’ll likely want to add a field so customers can specify what time they want their delivery.

To add a field, click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab on the left-hand side of your screen. Scroll down to the ‘Fancy Fields’ section and find the ‘Date / Time’ field.

Drag and drop this field to wherever you want it on your form.

As before, you can click on the field to edit it. You’ll likely want to change the label. If you only accept same-day delivery orders, you’ll want to change the ‘Format’ to ‘Time’ only, too.

In the ‘Advanced’ options for the field, you can choose to change the different intervals offered. The options are 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour.

It’s a good idea to make the ‘Address’ field for your form mandatory. By setting a field as ‘Required’, you prevent the customer from submitting the form until they complete it.

Just click on the ‘Address’ field to edit it, then check the ‘Required’ box on the left hand side of the screen.

When you’ve finished creating your form, click ‘Save’ at the top of the screen before moving on to the next step.

Setting Up Notifications for Your Food Ordering Form

You’ll need to make sure that orders are coming through to the right people. WPForms automatically sends out an email to the administrator for your website, but that might not be where you want orders to go.

Click on the ‘Settings’ tab on the left-hand side of your screen. Click ‘Notifications’ and you’ll see the default notification on the right.

You may want to change the ‘Send to Email Address’ so that it’s different from your website administrator’s email. You can simply delete {admin_email} and enter one or more email addresses here. Make sure you separate multiple email addresses with a comma.

You may also want to change the subject line so that your orders don’t all have the exact same subject. You can easily include the customer’s name in the subject line using Smart Tags.

Just click on ‘Smart Tags’ and scroll down to ‘Name’. Click on that and WPForms will insert the correct code for it into your subject line. In this case, that’s {field_id="3"}.

Once you’re happy with the notification, click ‘Save’ at the top of the screen.

Tip: WPForms saves form entries in the WordPress database, so don’t worry if you accidentally delete an order from your email inbox. To see all orders, go to WPForms » Entries in your dashboard. Click on the name of your form to view the orders.

You’ll likely also want to set up an email notification for your customers. You can do this by clicking the ‘Add New Notification’ button.

You’ll be prompted to enter a name for the notification. You can use whatever makes sense to you here. The customer won’t see it.

To send the email to the customer, delete {admin_email} from the ‘Send To Email Address’ box and use ‘Show Smart Tags’ to select the ‘Email’ field.

Next, you’ll want to change the email subject line and your details. Simply type in whatever you want to use here.

You may also want to edit the email that the customer receives. By default, all it will show is the information they entered. You could add a message like this:

Once you’re happy with the customer notification, click ‘Save’ at the top of the screen.

Tip: To get back to the first notification you were editing, just scroll down.

Editing the Confirmation Message Your Customer Sees

When your customer completes the form, WPForms will show them a message to confirm that the form was submitted successfully.

You can edit this message by going to Settings » Confirmations. Just type whatever message you want into the box. You can even use the visual editor to format this message.

You can also choose to change the ‘Confirmation Type’ and send the customer to a thank you page, if you want.

Taking Payment Through Your Food Ordering Form

The standard takeout form isn’t set up for payments. That’s fine if you only accept cash on delivery. However, in some situations you might prefer to take online payment upfront from the customer.

If you want to take payments, you’ll need to set up your form with special fields that can calculate how much the customer owes. You’ll also need to integrate your form with a payment processor such as PayPal.

First, go to the ‘Fields’ tab to change your form itself. Click ‘Add Fields’ and scroll down to the ‘Payment Fields’ section. Replace any of your fields that list prices with one of the ‘Item’ fields.

On our form, we’ve removed the original ‘How many people is the meal deal for?’ field that we were using. We’ve replaced it with the ‘Multiple Items’ payment field.

When you’re using payment fields on your form, you need to make sure you include a ‘Total’ field too. This is so your form can show the customer the total they’ll pay.

Again, simply drag and drop the ‘Total’ field from ‘Payment Fields’ to wherever you want it on your form.

Make sure you save your form after making changes.

Next, you’ll need to choose a payment processor to use with your form. WPForms integrates seamlessly with PayPal and Stripe. To add either of these, go to WPForms » Addons in your WordPress dashboard.

We’re going to use the ‘PayPal Standard Addon’ for our form. Find it and click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

Now, go back to your food ordering form, under WPForms » All Forms.

Click on the ‘Payments’ tab of your form and select the payment integration you want to use.

Make sure you check the box ‘Enable PayPal Standard payments’ to activate this feature for your form.

Next, you’ll need to enter the PayPal email address that you’re using for your restaurant. Leave ‘Mode’ set to ‘Production and ‘Payment Type’ set to ‘Products and Services’.

You can change ‘Shipping’ to ‘Don’t ask for an address’ if you want, as the customer will have already filled in their address on the order form.

Click ‘Save’ at the top of the screen.

Your form will now automatically redirect customers to PayPal after they submit their order.

Adding the Online Food Ordering Form to Your Site

Finally, you need to add the form you’ve created to your website.

First, you’ll need to choose an existing page or create a new page for the form to go on. To create a page, go to Pages » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.

Give your page a title. Click on the (+) sign to create a new block. Select the ‘WPForms’ block from the ‘Widgets’ section or type ‘WPForms’ into the search bar.

Next, you’ll need to select your form from the dropdown list.

It’ll then be automatically added to your page. Simply publish (or update) your page to put the form live on your website.

We recommend testing out your form to make sure it’s working as expected. Check that you receive the email notification. If not, follow our instructions to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up online food ordering for restaurants. You might also be interested in our article on how to create a business email, and how to get a virtual business phone number for your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Set Up Online Food Ordering for Restaurants in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 30, 2020

How to Create an Online Order Form in WordPress (Step by Step)

Several of our readers have been asking how to create an online order form, so customers can easily place their orders on the website.

If you’re running a business like a restaurant or a physical store, you might not want to create a whole online shop. However, you may want to offer an easy way for customers to order food or other goods for you to deliver.

In this post, we’re going to show you how to create an online order form in WordPress. This will allow you to easily collect customer orders without adding a full-fledged eCommerce software to your website.

Creating an Online Order Form in WordPress

Perhaps you decided to start a website for your business recently, and you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Many businesses start an online store to not only collect orders but also accept payments and manage inventory. However, not all businesses need a complete eCommerce website.

If you only want customers to be able to fill an online order form, then you can create that much easily without a shopping cart solution.

A simple online order form gives you the option to either accept payments online, upon order pickup, or on delivery.

In this tutorial, we will be using WPForms to create an online order form because it allows you to do that easily with their drag & drop interface.

WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin on the market. Over 3 million websites use WPForms to easily create any kind of online form and add it to their website (no coding skills required).

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. Need help installing the plugin? See our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for detailed instructions.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. If you are new to WordPress, then take a look at our article on what are WordPress plugins and what you can do with them.

Once you have activated the WPForms plugin, you’ll see a new WPForms tab in the admin sidebar of your WordPress dashboard.

You need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the WPForms website.

Now you are ready to create your online order form.

Simply head over to WPForms » Add New page to create your first form.

Now, you’ll see the form creation screen. Type in a name for your form and choose a template. We recommend the ‘Billing / Order Form’ template.

Simply move your cursor over the template description and click the ‘Create a Billing / Order Form’ button.

Your form will automatically be created for you, and you’ll be taken straight into the WPForms form editor.

You can now edit your online order form however you want. The different parts of the form are called “fields”. You can change, add, or remove fields on your form with a single click.

The default template already includes fields for most of the information you’re likely to need, such as name, address, and phone number. However, you’ll need to list your actual products.

Click on the ‘Available Items’ field to edit it.

Type in the name and price of each of the items that customers can order from you. The price won’t automatically display on the form, so you may want to add this into the item name.

To add more options, simply click the (+) icon wherever you want to add the extra items.

Note: You can add as many items as you want. However, customers will only be able to select one option from this field.

If you have several categories of options, then you may want to copy the field to create groups.

You can copy the ‘Available Items’ field by clicking the ‘Copy’ icon that appears when you run your cursor over it, or when it’s selected.

Make sure you change the ‘Label’ of the fields to something appropriate to each group, too.

If you want customers to be able to select two or more options within a single field, you’ll need to use a different type of field.

Click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab then scroll down to ‘Payment Fields’ where you’ll find a ‘Checkbox Items’ field. Drag and drop this into position on your form.

You can now edit that field as before, entering names and prices for your items. Customers can check as many items as they want to order.

If you want to show images of your products, that’s really easy too. Simply click the ‘Use image choices’ box:

For each item, click the ‘Upload Image’ button to add images either from your computer or from your WordPress Media Library.

Your images won’t be resized or compressed by WPForms, so it’s important to upload them at the right size. They should all be the same size and no more than 250×250 pixels.

Ideally, you should also optimize your images for the web.

Finally, you may want to edit the ‘Comment or Message’ field at the bottom of the form, so that it’s not required. Not all users will want to add a message.

Simply click on the field and then uncheck the ‘Required’ box on the right to make this field optional.

You can follow this process for any field that you want to be optional. You can tell which fields are required because they’ll have a red asterisk next to the field’s label.

Once you’re happy with the design of your form, you can move on to configuring its settings. It’s a good idea to save the form first by clicking the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen:

Configuring the Notifications Your Order Form Will Send Out

First, click the ‘Settings’ tab on the left-hand side of your screen. This will open up your form’s settings.

Next, click the ‘Notifications’ tab to change your form’s email notifications. By default, completed order forms will be emailed to the admin address for your WordPress site.

You may want to change this or have the order forms copied to more than one address. You can simply type the email address or addresses in the ‘Send To Email Address’ box. If you’re entering more than one email address, separate them with a comma.

You might also want to change the subject line, so that it’s not the same for every order. This could make it easier to keep track of orders in a crowded email inbox.

Here, we’ve changed the subject line of the emails to read “Customer order from” and then the customer’s name. We used ‘Show Smart Tags’ to insert the name field in the subject line.

You can change any other details you want too.

We also strongly recommend setting up an email notification for your customers. This gives them a reminder of what they’ve ordered and lets them know that you’ve received their order.

To set up a new email notification, click the ‘Add New Notification’ button.

You’ll be prompted to type in a name for the new notification. You can call it whatever you want, as customers won’t see this name. We suggest something like ‘Customer Receipt’ or ‘Customer Email Confirmation’.

You’ll want the ‘Send To Email Address’ to be your customer’s email account. Delete {admin_email} from this box. Click the ‘Show Smart Tags’ and select the ‘Email’ field.

You’ll also want to enter other details for the email. We suggest using a subject line such as “Your order with” and the name of your company.

In the ‘Message’ field, you’ll probably want to add a message to your customer. The {all_fields} tag will give all the information the customer entered on the form.

What if you only want to include some of the customer’s information in the email? Or what if you want to put their order details first and include their delivery details at the end of the email? You can simply use Smart Tags to add any form fields into your form.

Once you’ve finished setting up the notifications, click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.

Tip: To get back to the first notification you were editing, just scroll down the screen.

Setting the Confirmation Message for Your Customers

Along with sending your customers an email receipt, you’ll want to show them an on-screen confirmation, so they know that their order has been sent.

You can do this under Settings » Confirmation tab.

The default confirmation reads “Thanks for contacting us! We will be in touch with you shortly.”

You can change this to anything you want, and you can use the visual editor here to format your text too.

Alternatively, you can redirect customers to a “Thank you” page on your website, or even to another website altogether.

Once you’ve set up the confirmation message, click ‘Save’ at the top of the screen.

Integrating Payment with Your Order Form (Optional)

If you want to take payment through your order form, then you’ll need to integrate it with a payment processor.

WPForms integrates very easily with two popular payment processors, PayPal and Stripe. Customers can pay either through their PayPal account or by entering their credit card details.

We’re going to use PayPal in this tutorial, but the process for Stripe is similar.

First, you’ll need to exit the form builder. You can do this by clicking the ‘X’ at the top right. You’ll be prompted to save your form if you have unsaved changes.

Next, go to WPForms » Addons page in your WordPress dashboard. Scroll down to the ‘PayPal Standard Addon’ and click the ‘Install Addon’ button beneath it.

The addon will then install and activate automatically.

Go back to your form, which you can find under WPForms » All Forms. Now, click on the ‘Payments’ tab.

Click on ‘PayPal Standard’ then fill in the details of the form. First, you’ll need to check the ‘Enable PayPal Standard payments’ box and enter your business’ PayPal email address.

Leave the ‘Mode’ dropdown set to ‘Production’ and leave ‘Payment Type’ set to ‘Products and Services’.

If you’re collecting the delivery address through the order form, then you can change ‘Shipping’ to ‘Don’t ask for an address.’

You don’t need to enter a ‘Cancel URL’, but you may want to create a page on your website for customers to be sent to if they don’t complete the checkout process.

Click the ‘Save’ button once you’ve finished.

Now, when the user submits the form, they’ll be automatically directed to PayPal to pay. You don’t need to add any extra fields to your form or do anything else.

Adding the Order Form to Your Website

The final step is to add your order form to your website.

Simply choose the page you want to add your form to, or create a new page under Pages » Add New.

Next, click on the (+) icon to add a new block (wherever you want your form) and find the ‘WPForms’ block. It’s located under the ‘Widgets’ section of blocks, or you can simply type ‘WPForms’ into the search bar to find it.

You’ll see a WPForms block. Click the ‘Select a Form’ dropdown and choose your form.

You’ll then see a preview of the form itself in the WordPress editor.

When you’re ready, save and publish (or update) your page. You can view it live on your site to see your form in action. Before sharing it with customers, we recommend testing out the form to ensure that it works as you expected.

It’s also a good idea to check that you receive the email notification when the form is submitted. If not, check out our post on how to fix the WordPress not sending email issue.

Even if you do miss an email or accidentally delete it, WPForms saves form data in the WordPress database. You can find all your orders by going to WPForm » Entries in your WordPress dashboard.

Click on the name of your form, and you’ll then see a list of entries. You can click ‘View’ next to any of these to see the details.

That’s it! We hope this article helped you learn how to create an online order form in WordPress. You might also like our guide on the best business phone services, and the must have WordPress plugins for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create an Online Order Form in WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.