Understanding orders

An orderA single purchase placed at one point in time, such as one or more tickets and any add-ons bought together. Each order is placed by one person, who is normally also the one paying, and has its own invoice number. When one person registers several people at once (for example, a parent booking for their children), that is still a single order and one bill covering everyone in that booking. is a single booking placed by one person at one point in time. It might be one ticket, or a parent booking several tickets with add-ons and a shirt, but it is always one order with one invoiceThe billing record for an order. Every order has a single invoice, with its own invoice number, covering everyone and everything booked together. Payments and refunds are tracked against it, so the invoice is the running record of what was owed and what has been paid. and one bill. Everything people buy on your site, tickets, add-ons, merch, and dealer purchases, arrives as an order. This page explains the parts of an order and the stages it moves through; the rest of this area builds on it.

What an order is made of

• Line items. Each thing in the order is a line itemA single line on an order, such as one ticket, an add-on, a merch item, a dealer purchase, or a custom charge. Each line has its own price, quantity, and status, and the lines together make up the order's total. An item can be cancelled or refunded on its own without affecting the rest of the order.: a ticket, an add-on, a merch item, a dealer purchase, or a custom charge. Every line has its own price, quantity, and status, and the lines together make the order total.
• The invoice. Each order has one invoice number, shown on the order and to the customer.
• The money. An order tracks its total, how much has been paid, and therefore the balance still owed. It also records any discount (for example from a voucher) and any credit raised against it.
• The people. An order is placed for one person and paid by one person. Usually these are the same, but when an admin or a parent books on someone’s behalf, the order records who it is for separately from who placed it.

The stages of an order

An order moves through a series of stages, shown as a status on the order. You will mostly see these:

Status	What it means
New	The order has been placed and is waiting to be approved. Nothing has been charged yet. (The customer sees this as “Awaiting approval”.)
Confirmed	The order has been approved and invoiced, but is not yet fully paid. You may also see this state called Awaiting payment; they mean the same thing.
Paid	The order is fully paid.
Refunded	The order was reversed after money had been taken.
Voided	The order was cancelled before any money was taken.

Note

Before an order is placed it is a draft: the cart someone is still filling in during checkout. A draft holds nothing and is not shown in your order lists; abandoned drafts are cleared away automatically, so you never need to manage them.

The pivotal step is approval. A placed order sits at New until it is approved, and approving it is what invoices it and takes payment. You can approve orders by hand or automatically with rules. Approving an order with no balance, for example one fully covered by a voucher, moves it straight to Paid; otherwise it becomes Confirmed until payment is complete.

Placing an order reserves stock

Stock (a ticket’s place, an add-on’s limited quantity) is reserved the moment an order is placed and becomes New, not while it is still a draft. Two things follow from this:

• A draft holds nothing, so someone can fill in a cart and still fail to place the order if the last place sells out first. Stock is only secured once the order reaches New.
• Once an order is New, its stock is held for it even before you approve it. Approving does not claim the stock; a New order already has it. This is why an order waiting for approval still counts against availability.

How payment reaches an order

Money can reach an order in a few ways, all covered under Payments:

• A card payment taken through the platform.
• A manual payment you record, such as a bank transfer or cash.
• A payment authorisation: a hold placed on a card at checkout that is charged when you approve the order.

Payment authorisations

A payment authorisationA temporary hold placed on a card that reserves the money without taking it yet. It is captured (actually charged) when the order is approved. A hold is only good for a few days: if it is not captured in time it lapses, and payment then has to be collected another way. is a temporary hold on a card. It reserves the money without taking it, which is how a booking can secure payment before you have approved it (for example a saved booking made before registration opens). When you approve the order, the hold is captured, meaning the card is actually charged.

Caution

A hold is only valid for a few days. If you do not approve the order in time, the hold lapses and the money is released back to the customer, so you would then need to collect payment another way. Approve authorised orders promptly. See Approving orders.

When value comes off an order

Cancelling or refunding part or all of an order produces a credit noteA record of value taken off an order after it was placed, for example when an item is cancelled or refunded. It shows how much came off what the customer owed, and how much (if any) was returned to them. A credit note is created automatically whenever you cancel or refund part or all of a paid order.: the record of what came off the order and how much, if anything, went back to the customer. Card payments taken through the platform can be sent back automatically; other payments are returned by hand. This is all covered in Refunds and cancellations.