Investigate a pending WooCommerce payment by comparing the order with the payment provider's transaction record. The order status can lag behind a payment, or the customer may not have completed payment at all. Establish which case applies before requesting another charge.
IN THIS ARTICLE
01 Collect the order evidence
Open the order and record its ID, creation time, amount, currency, payment method and non-sensitive transaction reference. Read the order notes for gateway responses or callback errors. Check whether this is a submitted Pending payment order or a temporary checkout Draft record, because they represent different stages.
02 Reconcile with the provider
- Open the correct live or sandbox merchant account.
- Search by transaction reference or the gateway's order metadata, then compare amount and currency.
- Determine whether the payment is absent, declined, authorised, captured, refunded or still processing.
- If payment succeeded, inspect the gateway's notification delivery and the store's logs at the same timestamp.
- Correct the identified callback, credential or plugin problem through the supported integration procedure.
- Recheck the order before retrying any payment or replaying a notification.
Should I mark the order Completed manually?
Not merely to remove the pending label. Changing an order status does not prove that funds were received and can trigger emails, downloads or fulfilment. Reconcile the provider's actual state first, then use the correct order workflow for the confirmed result.
What if the customer has a bank debit but the provider shows no completed payment?
A temporary authorisation or bank display can differ from a settled charge. Ask for a safe transaction reference, not full card details, and follow the provider's investigation process. Avoid promising an immediate refund for funds that may only be reserved.
03 Prevent duplicate actions
Do not repeatedly submit checkout, run capture actions or resend callbacks while the state is uncertain. Record each action and its result. If several orders are affected, pause the faulty payment method where appropriate and preserve logs for support. Provide order IDs, timestamps, gateway version and redacted errors so the issue can be investigated without exposing credentials or customer payment data.