Introduction
Setting up your Resource Shop for the first time? This guide will walk you through each step, from turning on payments and choosing your currency to adding tax rules and linking everything to the CRM.
No technical experience is needed! Just follow the steps in order, and your shop will be ready for products and orders by the end.
1. Finance Setup
Purpose:
Configure payment, currency, tax, and the CRM financial settings to ensure all orders are processed correctly and recorded as contributions in the CRM.
Complete the following configuration steps before adding products or processing any orders.
Let’s start by making sure your payment options are correctly set up.
1.1 Configure Payment Methods
Go to Store → Configuration → Payment Methods (/admin/commerce/config/payment-methods)
Enable the following payment methods:
Stripe (Credit card payments)
Pay by Invoice (Bank transfer or manual payments)
To configure Stripe:
Log in to your Stripe account
Go to Developers → API Keys
Copy the Publishable and Secret keys
In the CMS, open the Stripe payment method settings
Paste both keys into the respective fields
Set the Payment Action to “Capture payment immediately”
Save configuration
These methods allow users to complete purchases and ensure payments are logged as contributions in CiviCRM.
When a payment is received, Commerce automatically creates or updates a CiviCRM Contribution for the related user.
1.2. Configure Currency Settings
Go to Store → Configuration → Currency Settings (/admin/commerce/config/currency)
Ensure the default currency is set correctly for your organisation.
The default is GBP unless otherwise required.
1.3. Configure Shipping Information (for Shippable Products)
Go to Store → Configuration → Shipping
(/admin/commerce/config/shipping)
Add a Flat rate shipping service.
Shipping rates must be configured for all “Shippable” product types; otherwise, shipping charges will not be applied during checkout.
If your organisation charges VAT or sales tax, follow these steps to make sure the correct rate is applied during checkout.
1.4. Configure Taxes in CMS
Go to Store → Configuration → Taxes
(/admin/commerce/config/taxes)
Click “Add a tax rate” and enter the following details:
Name: e.g. VAT (UK)
Rate: 20%
Include in price: “No” (if VAT is added separately)
Save, then click “Configure component” to set conditions such as:
Country: United Kingdom
This ensures VAT is calculated correctly at checkout for taxable products.
1.5. Configure Sales Tax / VAT in CiviCRM
Go to Administer → CiviContribute → CiviContribute Component Settings
Enable Tax and Invoicing
Tick “Enable Tax and Invoicing”
Set the Tax term (e.g. “VAT”)
Adjust display options as needed
Create a Financial Account for Tax
Go to Administer → CiviContribute → Financial Accounts → Add Financial Account
Name: Sales Tax 20%
Type: Liability
Tick Is Tax?
Enter the tax rate and accounting code
Save
Link Tax Account to Financial Types
Go to Administer → CiviContribute → Financial Types
Edit or add a Financial Type (e.g. “Products”)
Under Accounts, assign the tax account created above as the Sales Tax Account
Save
Make sure the same tax rate and financial type are used in both CMS and CiviCRM to keep VAT calculations consistent.
Each product must have a CiviCRM Financial Type assigned so income is recorded in the correct financial account.
To verify your finance setup, create a test product and complete a checkout. Confirm that the resulting payment appears as a contribution in CiviCRM under the correct financial type.
Once you’ve finished these steps, you’ll have a working financial setup that connects every order to CiviCRM for easy reporting.
Note: Always test with a non-live Stripe key first to confirm configuration before enabling live transactions.
Once your finance configuration is complete, you can move on to organising products into categories that structure how they appear throughout the shop.
2. Product Categories
Purpose:
Organise resources into categories to control how they appear in product listings, filters, and discounts across the site.
This helps users easily find and browse resources when shopping or downloading content.
2.1 Adding or Editing Product Categories
Go to Structure → Taxonomy → Product Categories from the admin menu.
2. Click “Add Category” or choose to “Edit” the existing category.
3. Save.
After saving, confirm that the new or updated category appears in the Product Category list. With product categories in place, you can now access and manage the Resource Shop interface, where products and displays are created and maintained.