Payment required for zero value items

If i apply a discount or coupon that brings the shopping card total value to zero, i am still prompted for payment selection. Should this be the case?.  Should payment be bypassed if cart total is zero?

You cannot avoid the checkout process as it's a common process defined when anyone buys something on your website.

In order to skip checkout process on bases of total amount, you have to do lot of modifications in the code

There is another alternative what you can do

define user/customers with "exempt tax and shipping" sif you don't want them to even  get charged for tax and shipping

you can generate a discount coupon : Admin section > Promotion > Discount

1) Add new discount coupon
2) Discount Type : Whole Order
3) Discount Req : None
4) Discount LImit : Unilimited
5) Name : Your choice (any name)
6) Use Percentage : Mark The Checkbox
7) Discount Percentage: 100
8) Requires Coupon Code: Mark The Checkbox
9) Write the coupon code of your choice and provide it to  your customers and they will be charged $0.00

I posted the same as I hadn't seen your post. I agree with you that if there's no setting to turn this behaviour off it's a bug.

The coupon solution isn't acceptable.

If the store can not ask people who enter a coupon for their credit card details it can surely do the same for folks whose cart total is 0.00.

I'm offering some free digital downloads but want to offer them through NopCommerce. The price is 0, there's no shipping charge, and therefore no tax to pay. The cart is not empty but the total bill is 0.00. Checkout should skip asking for payment as the customer owes us zero.

Did you change anything to get this working?