> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.watx.in/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Cash on delivery confirmation
> Ask a cash-on-delivery customer to confirm on WhatsApp before you ship, tag or cancel the order at your store, and auto-cancel the ones nobody answers.
Cash-on-delivery orders are the ones most often returned undelivered, and most of those
are orders the customer never meant to place. The **Cash on delivery** tab of a
[store console](/integrations/store-console) sends one template with two buttons the
moment a COD order lands, and acts on the answer.
## How it runs
The store's webhook says the gateway was cash on delivery.
Your chosen template goes out with two buttons — confirm, or cancel.
**Confirm** tags the order at the store. **Cancel** cancels it there and restocks, if
you have that switched on.
After your deadline, an unanswered order is cancelled — only if the message was
actually delivered.
The customer's reply is handled before automations, flows and AI agents: "Cancel" tapped
on this template is an answer to you, not a keyword.
## Turning it on
**Ask COD customers to confirm** is the master switch. With it on, a new COD order gets
the confirmation template instead of the ordinary order message.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Confirmation template** | none | An approved template with **two quick-reply buttons** — one to confirm, one to cancel. Only templates that qualify are offered |
| **"Confirm" is the button** / **"Cancel" is the button** | Confirm / Cancel | The button labels, read off the template when you pick it and stored, so editing the template later cannot silently flip which tap means what |
| **Cancel at the store when they tap Cancel** | On | Cancels the order at Shopify and restocks it. Off, the order is only tagged |
| **Tag on confirm** / **Tag on cancel** | `cod-confirmed` / `cod-cancelled` | Written to the order at the store |
| **Cancel automatically when nobody answers** | Off | Turns on the timer below |
| **Deadline** | 24 hours | Hours after the message was sent. Between 1 hour and 14 days |
| **Only if the message was delivered** | On | The guardrail — see below |
| **Alert admins when an order is left open** | On | Uses the admin numbers and template on the Messaging tab |
If you have no suitable template, the picker offers the **store bundle**, which includes
`store_cod_confirm` with both buttons already on it. See
[Template library and packs](/whatsapp/template-library).
Cancelling and tagging an order at the store needs the `write_orders` scope. The Overview
tab and this tab both say so when the token does not have it — cancels will fail until
the store is reconnected with that permission.
## The guardrail
**Only if the message was delivered** is on by default, and it is the difference between
cancelling an order the customer declined and cancelling one they were never asked about.
Auto-cancel only fires when Meta reported the confirmation as **delivered**. An order whose
confirmation never reached the phone is left open and flagged as **Need a human**.
Switching it off means a customer who never received the message is treated as if they
declined, and real orders are cancelled.
## What the statuses mean
| Status | Meaning |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Awaiting reply** | The confirmation was sent; nobody has answered |
| **Confirmed** | The customer confirmed, or you confirmed on their behalf. The order is tagged at the store |
| **Cancelled by customer** | They tapped cancel. Cancelled at the store if that is on, and tagged |
| **Auto-cancelled** | The deadline passed with no answer and the guardrail was satisfied |
| **Need a human** | The deadline passed but the message was never delivered. Nothing was cancelled |
| **Cancelled at store** | The order was cancelled in Shopify rather than here |
| **Failed to send** | The confirmation template never went out |
Every exit from **Awaiting reply** happens once. A customer who taps Confirm while the
sweep is running does not have their confirmed order cancelled underneath them — the first
write wins. If the store then refuses the cancellation, the row carries the error and says
the order is still open at the store, which is recoverable.
The sweep runs every 15 minutes.
## Reading a reply
The button tap arrives as the button's own label, so a tap is unambiguous. People who type
instead of tapping are matched on whole words — "cancel" cancels, "confirm" confirms. A
message containing **both** words ("cancel my other order but confirm this one") is nobody's
decision to guess, so it is left for a human.
## The confirmations list
Every COD order that entered the flow, newest first, filterable by status. Each row shows
the order number, the customer and their phone, the total, the status (with the store's
error underneath when there is one), and when the message was **sent · delivered**.
Rows that are **Awaiting reply** or **Need a human** carry **Confirm** and **Cancel order**
buttons, so you can settle one by hand after a phone call.
The four tiles above the list: **Awaiting reply**, **Confirmed · 7d**, **Cancelled · 7d**
and **Need a human**.
## What the customer sees
The confirmation template, then a short acknowledgement of whichever way they answered. If
you also have the **Order received** recipe on, tick **Skip cash-on-delivery orders** when
setting it up — two messages about one order in the same minute reads as a fault.