Differentiating Backend vs. Frontend Purchases in Magento

Question

Is there a way to tell if an order was placed through the frontend of the web site or entered through the administrative panel?

Answer 1

Every order has a store_id, when entered through administraction it will either be 0 (for 'admin' store) or null.

if ($order->getStoreId()) {
    // was placed via frontend
}

Don't use getStore() as that won't always return the admin store object reliably.

Does not work with latest versions of Magento. (see comment)