Relationship Between Bookings and Orders: Understanding the Connection

A fully formed booking with WooCommerce and WooCommerce Bookings consists of two pieces:

• A booking entry visible or editable on your website dashboard under Bookings > All Bookings.
• A corresponding order viewable or editable on your website dashboard under WooCommerce > Orders.

The relationship between bookings and orders is an important concept to understand in the context of managing bookings and transactions.

When a customer adds a booking product to their cart and checks out, it represents their intention to reserve a specific time slot or availability. The checkout process creates a booking entry in the system, capturing details such as the date, time, duration, and any additional requirements.

However, a booking alone does not complete the transaction. The shop manager also needs to create an order to confirm the customer’s reservation and finalize the process. The order represents the actual purchase or acquisition of the booked product or service.

The connection between bookings and orders is that a booking serves as a precursor to an order. Once a customer makes a booking, the system generates an order to formalize the transaction and complete the purchase. The association of the booking information with the corresponding order, creates a clear link between the reserved time slot and the confirmed purchase.

These two entities have independent statuses that are bidirectionally synchronized; order status changes can update booking status, and booking status changes can update order status.

Finding the WooCommerce order for a Booking

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You can find the corresponding order of a booking in the following locations:

• On the list of Bookings under Bookings > All Bookings on the dashboard, in the “Order” column.
• On the Edit Booking screen for a specific booking, as a link under the Booking Details header.

Finding the Booking for a WooCommerce order

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The corresponding order links to the booking as the item purchased within the “Edit Order” screen.

Why do orders have a status of Processing and not Completed?

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Once a customer pays for an order, WooCommerce only sets the status of the order to Completed if all products purchased in the order are both virtual and downloadable. If all the products in an order are physical and/or virtual without being downloadable, WooCommerce marks the order as Processing. This helps you manage the shipping of physical items.

Bookable products marked as virtual override the behavior of normal virtual products. As a result, when an order only contains a virtual bookable product, WooCommerce marks the order as Completed automatically, if the payment has gone through.

By contrast, when an order contains a bookable product that is not virtual, the system sets the order status to Processing.

If you need more control, you can use the Order Status Manager extension to manage the order statuses in more detail, regardless of product type.

Booking Statuses

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Status	Internal Key	Description
In Cart	in-cart	Booking created when customer adds a bookable product to the cart. Holds the time slot.
Was In Cart	was-in-cart	Booking was removed from the cart by the customer (temporary state).
Unpaid	unpaid	Booking has been checked out but payment has not been received yet.
Pending Confirmation	pending-confirmation	Booking requires admin approval before the customer can pay.
Confirmed	confirmed	Admin has approved the booking. Customer can now proceed to pay.
Paid	paid	Payment has been received for this booking.
Complete	complete	The booking’s end date/time has passed. Automatically set by cron.
Cancelled	cancelled	The booking has been cancelled (by admin, customer, or due to order

Checkout Flows

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WooCommerce Bookings has two different checkout flows depending on whether the product requires confirmation or not.

Standard (No Confirmation Required)

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The customer selects a date/time, adds to cart, and pays using any available payment gateway. The booking is confirmed automatically upon payment.

Requires Confirmation

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When the product is configured with Requires Confirmation enabled. In this flow:

• All standard payment gateways are removed at checkout
• A special internal gateway (“Check Availability”) is used instead
• The customer cannot pay until the admin confirms the booking
• The order is created with a Pending status
• The booking enters pending-confirmation status
• Once the admin confirms, the customer receives a link to pay

Complete Status Flow

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Phase 1: Cart

Customer clicks "Book Now"
    │
    ▼
Booking created with status: IN-CART
    │
    ├── Inactive timeout (cron) ──► Booking Removed
    │ 
    └── Customer proceeds to checkout ──► Phase 2

Phase 2: Checkout

Customer at checkout page
    │
    ├── Product requires confirmation? ──► YES ──► (see Phase 4 below)
    │
    └── NO (Standard)
            │
            ▼
        Payment gateways displayed
            │
            ▼
        Customer submits order
            │
            ▼
        Booking status: IN-CART → UNPAID
        Order status: PENDING
            │
            ▼
        Phase 3: Payment

Phase 3: Payment Processing

Order awaiting payment (status: PENDING)
    │
    ├── Payment succeeds
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Order status: PENDING → PROCESSING (or COMPLETED for virtual products)
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Booking status: UNPAID → PAID
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Cron events scheduled:
    │       ├── Reminder (1 day before booking start)
    │       └── Auto-complete (at booking end time)
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Phase 5: Completion
    │
    ├── Payment fails
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Order status: FAILED
    │   Booking status: stays IN-CART (allows retry)
    │       │
    │       └── If still failed after 1 hour ──► Booking: CANCELLED
    │
    └── Customer abandons ──► Booking cleaned up by cron

Phase 4: Requires Confirmation Flow

If the booking product requires confirmation, the flow is:

Customer submits order (Requires Confirmation)
    │
    ▼
Only "Check Availability" gateway shown
    │
    ▼
Order status: PENDING
Booking status: IN-CART → PENDING-CONFIRMATION
    │
    ▼
Admin receives "New Booking" email
Customer receives "Pending Confirmation" email
    │
    ├── Admin CONFIRMS booking
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Booking status: PENDING-CONFIRMATION → CONFIRMED
    │   Customer receives "Booking Confirmed" email with payment link
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Customer pays ──► Order: PENDING → PROCESSING/COMPLETED
    │                      Booking: CONFIRMED → PAID
    │       │
    │       ▼
    │   Phase 5: Completion
    │
    └── Admin REJECTS / CANCELS booking
            │
            ▼
        Booking status: PENDING-CONFIRMATION → CANCELLED
        Order status: CANCELLED (if single-item order)
        Customer receives "Booking Cancelled" email

Phase 5: Completion

Booking is PAID or CONFIRMED
    │
    ├── 1 day before booking start ──► Reminder email sent (via cron)
    │
    ▼
Booking end date/time passes
    │
    ▼
Cron job: wc-booking-complete
    │
    ▼
Booking status: PAID/CONFIRMED → COMPLETE

Order Status to Booking Status Mapping

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When an order’s status is changed, here’s what happens to the linked booking(s):

Order Status Changed	Booking Status Change
processing	in-cart/unpaid → paid
completed	in-cart/unpaid → paid
processing/completed → pending	paid → unpaid
cancelled	Any active status → cancelled
refunded	Any active status → cancelled
failed	paid → in-cart (revert for retry)
Still failed after 1 hour	in-cart → cancelled