Editing Confirmed Orders & Refunds
Catering orders change all the time — guests drop out, a dish gets swapped, a delivery gets added. PrepStation lets you keep editing an order after it has been confirmed (and even after it has been paid), while keeping the invoices, payments, and kitchen production in sync.
Pending Changes
Once an order is confirmed, any edit you make (changing quantities, adding or removing lines, adjusting prices) is applied to the order immediately, but the downstream effects are held until a manager presses Confirm Update:
- Invoices are not reissued or superseded yet.
- Kitchen production demand is not updated yet.
- No money moves.
While edits are pending, the order shows an amber Confirm Update button in the quick navigation with a Pending label, so it's obvious the order is carrying uncommitted changes.
Note
Confirming updates is manager-gated. Sales staff can stage the edits; a manager commits them.
What Happens to the Invoice When You Confirm
When you press Confirm Update, the order's invoices are reconciled to the new totals:
| Invoice state | What happens |
|---|---|
| Draft | The draft simply updates to the new totals |
| Issued, not yet paid | The old invoice is superseded by a new revision with the new totals |
| Paid, and the order got more expensive | A new invoice revision is issued that carries the payment forward — the added amount shows as a balance due to collect |
| Paid, and the order got cheaper | The paid invoice stays as-is (paid invoices are never rewritten); the overpayment is refunded automatically — see below |
Automatic Refunds
If the customer already paid and your edits made the order cheaper, the customer is now owed money. Confirming the update settles this automatically:
- A credit note is issued for the overpaid amount, so there is always an auditable document for the refund.
- The money is returned the way the customer paid:
- Card payments are refunded to the card through Stripe (money moves immediately).
- Cash / check payments are recorded as an offline refund — you hand the money back yourself.
- On-account customers receive a credit on their house-account balance.
The refund warning
You will never trigger a refund silently. Whenever confirming an update would refund money, the Confirm Update button opens a warning dialog first, showing the exact amount and how it will be returned. You have three choices:
- Confirm & refund — commit the changes and refund the overpayment automatically (recommended).
- Confirm — I'll refund manually — commit the order changes only. No money moves; the amount stays visible as refund owed on the order's Payments panel until you settle it yourself (for example with a partial refund, a different settlement method, or a negotiated credit).
- Cancel — close the dialog and leave the edits pending.
After confirming, the flash message states exactly what happened to the money — refunded automatically, waiting for manual handling, or (rarely) that an automatic settlement failed and needs attention.
Warning
If an automatic refund can't be settled (for example, the customer has no active house account to credit), the order changes still commit — the amount remains as refund owed on the Payments panel for you to handle manually.
Handling a Refund Manually
If you chose I'll refund manually (or an automatic settlement failed):
- Open the order and go to the Payments panel — the amount owed back shows as Refund owed.
- Refund a specific payment with its Refund button (supports partial amounts), or issue a credit note against the invoice with your preferred settlement (card, offline, or house balance).
- Once the refund is recorded, the refund owed clears and the order's payment status updates.
Where to See What Happened
- Payments panel on the order lists every payment, refund, and credit note.
- Credit notes are printable documents; automatic ones carry a memo explaining which order change caused them.
- The order timeline logs the "changes pending" and "changes confirmed" events with who did them.
Last updated: August 23, 2026