Skip Payment Method for Roles

A professional WooCommerce plugin that allows selected user roles to place orders without online payment, upload an invoice at checkout, and automatically assign a custom order status.

This plugin is designed for trade, distributor, wholesale, or account customers where checkout should work like a normal WooCommerce order flow, but payment is skipped for selected roles.

Features

• Assign role-based checkout rules from the WooCommerce admin
• Require invoice upload at checkout for selected roles
• Use a dedicated no-payment WooCommerce gateway for configured roles
• Apply a custom WooCommerce order status per role
• Set custom badge background and text colours for each custom status
• Change the checkout button text per role
• Support multiple roles with different rules
• Store uploaded invoice against the order
• Remove the “Pay” action for these orders in My Account
• Compatible with WooCommerce HPOS

Use Cases

This plugin is useful for businesses that need a manual review or invoice-based order process for certain customer types, such as:

• Distributors
• Trade customers
• Wholesale users
• Internal account customers
• B2B customers with payment on account

Requirements

• WordPress 6.4 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• WooCommerce 7.8 or higher

Installation

1. Upload the plugin folder to:

   wp-content/plugins/skip-payment-method-for-roles

2. Activate the plugin in Plugins.

3. Make sure WooCommerce is installed and active.

4. Go to:

   WooCommerce → Skip Payment by Role

Configuration

Global Settings

You can configure:

• Allowed invoice file types
  Example: pdf,jpg,jpeg,png,doc,docx

• Maximum file size (MB)

Role Rules

Each role rule includes:

• Enable
  Turn the rule on or off

• User role
  The WordPress role the rule applies to

• Checkout button text
  Custom button text shown at checkout for that role

• Invoice field label
  Custom label for the upload field

• Invoice required
  Require the customer to upload an invoice before placing the order

• Status slug
  Internal WooCommerce status slug, for example: distributor-review

• Status label
  Human-readable status label, for example: Distributor Review

• Status Background colour
  Badge background colour for the custom order status in admin

• Status colour
  Badge text colour for the custom order status in admin

How It Works

For Matching Roles

When a logged-in user matches an enabled role rule:

1. A custom invoice upload field is shown on checkout
2. The uploaded invoice is stored before the final order submit
3. Only the plugin’s custom no-payment gateway is available
4. The order is placed without online payment
5. A custom order status is assigned
6. The uploaded invoice is attached to the order
7. The cart is cleared normally
8. The customer is redirected to the normal WooCommerce thank you page

For Other Roles

Users who do not match a configured rule will continue through the standard WooCommerce checkout flow.

Order Status Styling

The plugin supports custom colours for each status badge shown in WooCommerce admin.

You can configure:

• background colour
• text colour

This makes it easier for store admins to quickly identify different role-based order types.

Uploaded Invoice Handling

The uploaded invoice is:

• uploaded asynchronously before order placement
• temporarily linked to the logged-in user during checkout
• attached to the final order after successful submission
• shown in the admin order details section

If the customer removes the file before placing the order, the temporary upload is deleted.

Admin Order Details

For role-based no-payment orders, the order admin screen shows:

• customer role
• uploaded invoice file link

My Account Behaviour

For orders created through this plugin:

• the standard WooCommerce “Pay” action is removed
• the order behaves as a manual-review or invoice-submitted order

Developer Notes

Main Concepts

This plugin uses:

• a role-based rule system stored in WordPress options
• a custom WooCommerce payment gateway
• asynchronous invoice upload through AJAX
• temporary upload tracking using user meta
• custom WooCommerce order statuses
• admin CSS output for custom status badge colours

Important Architecture Notes

This plugin intentionally uses a proper WooCommerce gateway instead of forcing checkout to bypass payment with non-standard hacks.

That ensures:

• normal WooCommerce order creation
• normal thank you redirect
• normal cart clearing
• predictable status flow
• better compatibility with WooCommerce checkout logic

File Structure

skip-payment-method-for-roles/
├── skip-payment-method-for-roles.php
├── includes/
│   └── class-spmfr-gateway.php
└── assets/
    ├── admin.js
    └── checkout.js