Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson you will know…. 

1. What Orders are in Thynk, and how they interact with Mews 

2. When they are generated and sent to Mews

3. How to find orders

4. How to update orders with changes made to the booking

About Orders

Orders are found on bookings only for properties connected to Mews PMS.  If you don’t have Mews PMS, you will not see Orders on your bookings in Thynk.

Orders are a way to send all revenue stream items attached to a booking to Mews, so invoices can be generated from Mews. These include all components of booking packages, booking products, and events which appear as Order Lines on the respective Order.

The information about guest rooms is sent via ‘PMS Blocks’ and eventually using ‘Reservations’, and not via ‘Orders’.

How and when are Orders generated? 

Thynk generates and sends orders automatically to Mews at two milestones in the booking cycle: 

1. When a booking has reached a Closed Won (or Definite) status, 

2. And typically on the consumption date (depending on your settings).  The consumption date is the date of the actual booking event. 

Once again, the sales team doesn’t have to do anything to generate orders - this is an automated feature. 

Viewing Orders 

Each booking has its own Orders.  

1. To view orders, go to your booking, and in the Payments tab look for Orders. The number next to Orders in parentheses represents the total number of orders generated and sent to Mews for this booking. 

2. Here you will see a list of the orders.

3. A booking can have multiple orders depending on how many days the booking is in house. A separate order is created for each ‘consumption date’, and for each ‘Mews Service’.  For example, in the above screenshot, there are two orders on this booking, one for each Mews Service and each consumption date.  If this booking had another day, you would see separate orders for the next Consumption Date for each Mews Service.

4. Mews Services are defined in the Mews system. When we fetch the products from Mews we also get the respective Mews Service. 

5. You could have a long list of orders if it’s a longer meeting (i.e. many consumption dates), and more complex with more ‘Mews Services’.  The ‘Mews Id’ appears when the order has been generated successfully. 

6. To view specific details, click on the order to open it. 

7. The top section shows you the order name, owner, booking name, customer, consumption date, and total order revenue.

8. Below this, in the Mews section, when the order is sent to Mews successfully you will see a Mews ID.  Each order has its own Mews ID. 

9. If the order is unsuccessful, the Mews ID is blank but you will see a Mews Error. Usually, this is a configuration issue and can be fixed by your Thynk Admin, but you can contact Thynk Support for help. 

10. Under this, in the Order Lines section, the number in parentheses represents the total number of order lines for this order. In this example above, the package consists of several package items in Thynk. These package items appear as Order Lines - each item has the quantity, and an individual price, which give Mews the granularity to be able to produce very precise invoices. (Once again, you do not have to do anything to send this detail - Thynk does it automatically!) 

How Changes to Bookings affect Orders

Of course changes happen to bookings all the time.  Here is how these affect orders:

1. You can edit a booking any time through the booking cycle, including making changes to products, packages, events, guest rooms etc.

2. When making changes to a booking with Orders already sent to Mews, you must click on the Update Order button, on the top right of the booking (down arrow). (If a booking is not closed won/definite, and orders haven’t been already created, you won’t be updating the order.)

3. Note that when changes are made, you will see many more orders generated automatically, which can be confusing to the sales team, but this is how it’s designed to work so that the numbers are all correct for invoicing from Mews.

For example, if you want to increase the number of packages sold from 6 to 12 and you click on ‘Update Order’ Thynk will create new orders for that day, removing the original number (minus 6), but will also create new orders adding the new number (12) so the new totals would show your edited amount.  

4. Even if you need to make changes during or just after the booking stay, continue to make your changes in Thynk as normal and remember to click on Update Orders. 

(Note that Orders in Thynk are not updated from Mews. Orders generate a ‘Bill’ in Thynk, where final changes and updates from Mews are reflected. )

Resources

1. Common Mews Errors - Troubleshooting Guide - Knowledge base article