Customer success story
What challenge was the customer facing?
The company needed funeral homes to place complete orders on their own. Each order carries the details of a death and a family, every item in a cart needs its own set of those details, and the family's signed authorization has to end up on the right order.
The company makes memorial products from cremated remains. Funeral homes in the US and Canada sell them to families, place the order and ship the remains in, and the company also sells directly to families. In Odoo, each item becomes a manufacturing order that carries the funeral director, decedent and family details through production.
Funeral home orders had come in through the company's Shopify store. The details traveled as line-item properties, which the TeqStars Shopify Connector carried into the Odoo order and the manufacturing order. Funeral homes carried a Funeral Wholesale tag on their Shopify customer profile.
The company wanted a portal of its own for funeral homes, specified in a detailed outline and recorded walkthroughs. Prices had to stay hidden until a funeral home logged in. Display items such as brochures needed only the funeral home's details, while service orders needed the funeral director, the decedent, the family, the expected ship date and special instructions for every single item. Funeral homes approved for Net-30 terms had to be able to order without paying up front.
Signing raised its own question. Families never see the portal built for funeral arrangers and should not sign on a shared screen at the funeral home, so the authorization form had to reach them by email and be signed on their own phone or computer, then come back to the order.
What did the business need to achieve?
The portal had to let funeral homes place complete, signed and paid orders without help from the company's team. The goals were:
- prices and products shown only to logged-in funeral homes, except chosen categories
- one set of details per item, captured step by step and passed on to production
- the authorization signed by the family on their own device and attached to the order
- card payment, or Net-30 terms for approved funeral homes
- order status, expected delivery and signature status visible in the funeral home's account
- order numbers that never clash with Odoo or Shopify orders
How did TeqStars help?
TeqStars built the B2B portal as a custom Odoo module on the Odoo website shop, the customer portal, Odoo Sign and Odoo Appointments. The portal writes the same order fields that Shopify orders already filled, so every detail a funeral home enters reaches the manufacturing order. It was built and tested on the company's staging database before launch.
- Login first. Prices and Add to Cart stay hidden until a funeral home logs in, product pages require a login, and the button reads Log In to See Prices. Chosen categories can stay public.
- Two ordering paths. Display items such as brochures go straight to the cart. Service products open a four-step order form instead, so a service order can never reach the cart without its details.
- A four-step form for each item. Funeral director, decedent name and tag ID, family contacts and update recipients; the ship date with an estimated completion date; special instructions; then the distributor terms.
- Less typing. The funeral director's email fills in from the login, progress updates to the family are on by default, and the funeral home can add any number of extra recipients.
- Special instructions as checkboxes. Alkaline hydrolysis, partial remains and an alternate shipping address are yes-or-no choices, and general order notes have a box of their own.
- One line per item, complete or removed. Every item keeps its own details, even two of the same product, and items left half-configured are removed when the cart or checkout opens.
- Authorization signed by the family. The funeral home downloads the form, or emails it to the family to sign in Odoo Sign on their own device. The signed PDF attaches to the order automatically.
- Card or Net-30 payment. Cards run through the Helcim payment integration TeqStars built. The Net-30 option appears only for funeral homes tagged Net-30, and their orders are confirmed at once with Net-30 terms.
- A default payment method per funeral home. Each funeral home can save a preferred card or payment method in its account, and checkout and invoice payment pages select it automatically.
- An account made for funeral homes. The account shows the funeral home's name and an Addresses page. Its orders list adds the decedent, expected delivery date, current production step and authorization status.
TeqStars worked from the company's outline and walkthroughs and modeled the home, login and password reset pages on the company's public website. The home page links to ordering, the authorization form and Book a Training, and shows letters from families that the team manages from a menu in Odoo. At launch, TeqStars merged the module into production, activated the Net-30 payment term and provider, flagged the service products, set up shop categories for people and pets, and matched the header, footer and home page to staging.
Review rounds with the team shaped the details before launch. Website orders are numbered from B00001 so they never clash with Odoo or Shopify order numbers. Billing addresses change only from the account, while shipping addresses stay editable at checkout, and addresses are limited to the US and Canada. Staff can also grant portal access to every eligible funeral home contact in one click.
Key capabilities delivered
- Business Process Automation
- eCommerce Integration
- Manufacturing
- Payment Integration
- Custom Development
Challenges we solved
- Wholesale prices open to every visitor
- Brochures and service orders needing different checkouts
- Separate details for every item in one cart
- Families signing on a shared funeral home screen
- Signed authorizations disconnected from their orders
- Net-30 terms only for approved funeral homes
- Order numbers clashing with Odoo and Shopify orders
- Half-configured items reaching checkout
What business processes improved?
Before
Funeral home orders came in through the company's Shopify store. The funeral director, decedent and family details traveled as line-item properties, and the TeqStars Shopify Connector carried them into the Odoo order and the manufacturing order.
After
Funeral homes log in to an Odoo B2B portal, fill in a four-step form for each item and email the authorization to the family to e-sign. They pay by card or on Net-30 terms and follow each order's production step and signature status in their account.
Which integrations were involved?
What results did the project achieve?
- steps in the order form for each item
- 4
- ordering paths, display items and service orders
- 2
- countries in the address book, US and Canada
- 2
Funeral homes now place their own orders in the portal TeqStars built, and every service item arrives with its own funeral director, decedent, family and ship-date details. Because the portal fills the same order fields as the Shopify orders, those details reach the manufacturing order without retyping, and production works from one set of fields whichever way an order came in.
The family's authorization travels with the order. The family signs on their own device, the signed PDF lands on the order, and the funeral home sees in its account which orders are signed, which production step each one is in and when delivery is expected. Families who opted in receive progress updates by email, with the selling funeral director copied on each one.
Payment is settled in the same visit, with the funeral home's preferred card or method already selected, or on Net-30 terms for approved funeral homes, whose orders are confirmed right away. When a Net-30 invoice is paid later from the portal, the invoice payment page selects that same preferred method. Funeral homes also reset their own passwords and book training sessions from the portal, without asking the company's team.
