Benchtime Support

Benchtime is made and supported by Red Dirt Software, a small studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Email: support@reddirtsoftware.dev
We aim to answer within 1 business day, Monday to Friday, US Central time. Please include your store's .myshopify.com address and, if it's about a specific order, the order number. Never send passwords or card details.

Getting started

1. Open Benchtime from your Shopify admin. Four short setup steps walk you through it, and nothing your shoppers see changes until the last one:
   • What you make to order: every product, or only products with a tag (such as made-to-order).
   • How much you can make: items (or orders) per day or week, and the days you work.
   • Orders you already have: Benchtime finds your open, unfulfilled orders. Put them on the board in a stage of your choice (they don't count toward your plan), or start fresh and only track new orders.
   • Go live: turn on ship-by dates at checkout and add the date to your product pages.
   • Or skip setup, and come back to any of it in Settings.
2. Fine-tune your capacity in Settings whenever you like: closures such as holidays or markets, and a different capacity for individual weekdays.
3. Fine-tune timing (optional):
   • days before work can start;
   • days to ship after finishing;
   • an order cutoff time;
   • a limit on how far ahead you'll take orders.
4. Add the ship-by date to your product pages. In Online Store → Themes → Customize, open a product template, choose Add block → Apps → Ship-by date, style it, and save. If your theme doesn't support app blocks, turn on the Ship-by date (auto) app embed instead.
5. Checkout dates turn on when you finish setup (or from the checklist on Today). Shipping options show "· Ships by …". You can turn this off in Settings.
6. Optional: in Products, give slower products extra days or more workload, or mark products that aren't made to order so they're never tracked.

Shopify's delivery estimate at checkout

Most shops can skip this: it only matters if you've turned on Shopify's own estimated delivery dates.

Shopify can add its own delivery estimate under each shipping option at checkout, for example "Tue, Oct 27 – Thu, Oct 29". Shopify works that out from a fixed fulfillment time plus time in the post. It doesn't know how long your made-to-order work takes, so it can show a date before Benchtime's "Ships by" date. Shoppers then see two dates that disagree.

Benchtime can't remove Shopify's estimate, but you can change it in Shopify:

1. In Shopify admin, go to Settings → Shipping and delivery → Estimated delivery dates.
2. Choose one:
   • Off (recommended). Shopify stops showing its own dates, so the only date shoppers see is your ship-by date. Your shipping options can still show a transit time like "3 to 5 business days", which is the time in the post after you ship.
   • Manual, with a longer fulfillment time. Keep Shopify's dates but set Fulfillment time to your usual wait (pick Custom for anything longer than the presets). This is a fixed number, so it won't follow Benchtime's dates as you get busier or quieter.
3. Click Save.

You don't need to check this yourself: Benchtime looks at the setting, shows where it stands under Settings → Checkout, and only warns you on Today if Shopify's estimate would show an earlier date than yours. You can dismiss that warning if you'd rather keep Shopify's dates.

Everyday use

• Board: every order in its current stage. Move orders along as you work.
• Orders: search, filter, sort and move many orders at once.
• Order page: see where an order sits in line and when it will finish. You can mark it as rush, move it to a specific place, set the date you promised the customer, and add a private note.
• Customer link: on any order, click Copy customer link and send it to your customer. It shows their order's stage and ship-by date, and nothing personal.

FAQ

How is the ship-by date worked out?
Benchtime lines up your open orders in order and fills each workday with as much as your capacity allows. It skips days off and closures and adds any lead time (only while an order is still in your first stage) and your shipping buffer. The date an order finishes, plus your days to ship, is its ship-by date. The date shown to new shoppers is when the next order would ship.

The date on my product page looks wrong.
Check your capacity, workdays and closures in Settings, and any extra days on that product in Products. Dates refresh when orders come in or change, and every 30 minutes otherwise.

Does it track every order?
By default it tracks every order. In Settings you can switch to tracking only products with a certain tag (default made-to-order). You can also exclude individual products in Products.

What happens when I'm fully booked?
You're booked out when a new order would ship later than your "Booked-out limit" (Settings → Ship-by dates, if you set one), or when there's no room at all in the next 3 years (for example, a closure with no end date). Product pages then show your booked-out message instead of a date. Checkout stays open unless you also turn on "Also pause checkout while I'm past my booked-out limit". That setting is off until you turn it on, it only works with a limit, and Today shows a red banner whenever it's pausing checkout.

What counts toward my plan?
Only new orders that go on the board in a calendar month. Orders that were already open when you installed are free. If you go past your allowance, new orders wait off the board ("waiting for room on your plan") until you upgrade or the month rolls over. Nothing is lost.

How do I change plans?
Use Plan on the Today page. It opens Shopify's plan page, where you can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Billing is through your Shopify invoice.

Checkout shows a delivery date that's earlier than my ship-by date.
That's Shopify's own estimate, not Benchtime's. Turn it off or lengthen it: see Shopify's delivery estimate at checkout above.

Does Benchtime email my customers?
No. You choose when to share the customer link.

Does it slow down my store?
The product page block reads a date your store already has (a metafield) and loads one small stylesheet. It makes no extra network calls.

What data do you keep?
Order numbers, item titles and quantities, and production details. No customer names, emails or addresses. See the Privacy Policy.

How do I remove Benchtime?
Uninstall it from Settings → Apps in Shopify admin. The ship-by block and checkout dates stop showing straight away. All your Benchtime data is permanently deleted 48 hours after uninstall.