Quick Start

From install to your first approved order

This is the fastest path to seeing CrewCommerce actually work: one company, one order, one approval. It should take about ten minutes.

Before you start You need WooCommerce active, and at least one customer account to turn into your first company (or let a customer register one themselves — see step 2).

  1. Install and activate CrewCommerce

    Download the free plugin (or CrewCommerce Pro from your purchase email). In WP Admin, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, choose the zip, install it and activate it. A new CrewCommerce menu appears in the left-hand admin sidebar, below WooCommerce. Not sure which version you need? See Free and Pro.

    The WordPress Plugins list showing CrewCommerce active
    CrewCommerce active alongside WooCommerce.

  2. Open the CrewCommerce Dashboard

    Click CrewCommerce in the sidebar. On a brand-new install, with no companies yet, you'll see a short setup guide right on the dashboard: Create a Company, Invite Team Members, Configure Approval Rules — with a button straight to Companies. Once you have at least one company, the dashboard instead shows your order stats and recent activity, like this:

    The CrewCommerce Dashboard in WP Admin, showing order totals and a Needs Your Attention panel
    The CrewCommerce Dashboard once you have companies set up. The "Needs your attention" panel is CrewCommerce proactively surfacing things like orders with no approver.

  3. Set your approval rule

    Go to CrewCommerce > Settings. The one setting you actually need for this walkthrough is Order Value Threshold — the dollar amount at which a Requester's order needs manager approval. Leave it at a low number (or 0, which means every order needs approval) so it's easy to trigger.

    CrewCommerce Settings page showing the order value threshold, restricted categories, and workflow behavior options
    Settings — full details in Approval Workflows.

  4. Create your first company

    Go to CrewCommerce > Companies and click Add New. Give it a name and choose an existing customer to be its Admin — that person becomes the company's first Manager-equivalent, able to approve orders and manage the team.

    The Companies list in WP Admin, showing four companies with their admin, member count and creation date
    Once you have companies, this list is your starting point for managing any of them.
    Or let the customer do it With CrewCommerce Pro, customers can also create their own company by checking "This is a business account" when they register — see Self-Onboarding & Join Requests.

  5. Add a team member

    Click into your new company and use Invite Member to add a second person as a Requester. This is the person who'll submit an order for approval in the next step. (If you only have one customer account handy, you can also just change your Admin's own role temporarily — but a second account makes the approval flow easier to see.)

    A company detail page in WP Admin listing team members, their roles, and monthly spending limits
    A company's team, with roles (and, with Pro, optional monthly spending limits).

  6. Place an order as the Requester

    Log in as your Requester and add something to the cart that meets or beats your threshold from step 3. Go to checkout and place the order. It's placed, but held for approval — the confirmation page says who it's waiting on:

    WooCommerce order received page reading: Thank you — your order has been received. It needs approval from Sandra Okafor before it is processed, and they have been emailed about it. Follow it under My Requests.
    This is expected — it means CrewCommerce is working. The order sits in Pending Approval and the approver has been emailed.
    Not what you expected? If the confirmation page doesn't mention approval, the order didn't match a rule — check the cart total against your threshold, and that the person you're logged in as is a Requester. If it says the order is waiting but names nobody, the company has no Manager or Admin yet; see Approval Workflows.

  7. Approve it as the Manager or Admin

    Log in as the company's Manager or Admin (they've also had an email about it). The order is waiting under My Account > Pending Approvals:

    The Pending Approvals screen in My Account, showing an order with its items, a notes field, and Approve and Reject buttons
    Approve or reject, with an optional note (required if rejecting).

    Click Approve. The order moves out of Pending Approval and on to you, and you get WooCommerce's usual new-order email. If your store takes payment online, the Requester is emailed a link to pay first — see Payment after approval.

  8. See it land

    The Requester can track their own request the whole way from My Account > My Requests, including its status and the approver's name:

    The My Requests screen showing an order pending approval, with its approver name and how long it has been waiting
    A Requester's view of their own submitted orders.
That's the whole loop A team member submitted an order, CrewCommerce routed it to the right person, that person approved it, and the order went through — with a record of the whole thing.

What to look at next

Roles & ConceptsWhat Managers, Admins and Requesters each see Spend LimitsCap what one person can spend per month Fast RestockOne-click reordering for regulars Real-World ScenariosHow this plays out day to day