What the Mess is for
Some restaurants feed the same people every day: a hostel's students, a company's workers, a labour camp. Nobody pays at the counter. Each meal is recorded against the member who ate it, and the bill comes at the end of the month — or the month is paid up front as a package.
The Mess keeps those members, records their meals, bills each month by the method your mess uses, carries advance and previous balance from month to month, and shows who owes what — member by member and company by company.
Switching it on and choosing your billing method
Settings → Modules → Mess System
Settings → Modules → Mess → Mess System. Turn it on, then switch on every billing method your mess uses. Each method has a Preview: an example bill you can change the numbers in, so you see what your members would be charged before you choose.
Fixed monthly package: a set price for a month of meals, billed when each member's month starts — their own month, from the day they started. Giving days away back is a choice on each plan. Tick Renew packages by themselves and each morning every member whose new month has started is billed for it; leave it off and the renewals wait for you on Mess Billing.
Pay per meal: every meal ticked on the meal register is charged at its own rate — breakfast, lunch and dinner — and the month is billed once it is over.
Expense sharing: what the mess spent in the month is divided among its members, by the meals each one ate or equally. Choose which under the method.
Food cost (optional, for every method): the expense category you enter the mess's food shopping under. The Mess Dashboard then shows the month's food cost, the Mess Report sets it against what was billed to show the mess's profit month by month, and expense sharing fills in the month's spending from it.
After saving, Mess appears in the sidebar: Mess Dashboard, Mess Members, Meal Register, Mess Billing, Mess Companies and Mess Menu.
Who can do what
Roles → Mess
The Mess is hidden from every role until you grant it under Roles. Mess → View opens the dashboard, the members and the companies; Add registers members and makes plans and companies; Edit changes them, closes and reopens memberships and records days away; Delete removes a member or company with nothing on the books.
Three buttons are separate, because they are usually three different people: Record Meals on the Meal Register (the counter), Take Mess Payments (the cashier) and Raise Monthly Bills & Renewals (the manager, who can also void a bill).
خطط الوجبات
Mess Members → Meal plans
A plan says which meals a member gets and how they are billed. Make your plans first: Mess Members → Meal plans → New meal plan.
A monthly plan has a price a month, and a tick for giving days away back. A per-meal plan has a price for each meal it covers. A sharing plan has no price — the month's spending is entered when it is billed.
Once members are on a plan its billing method stays as it is; switch the plan off to stop offering it to new members. To move a member to another method, change their plan.
Registering members
Mess Members
Mess Members → Register member: name, mobile, ID number, room, company and meal plan.
Two dates, as mess books keep them: the first joining date, which never changes however often they renew or come back, and the mess start date, when billing starts. On a monthly package the member's month runs from the start date, and the first month is billed as soon as they are registered.
Moving members over from old books? Enter what they still owe as the previous balance, and any advance they had paid. The balance becomes an opening bill and the advance is taken off it first, then off the next bills.
Every member gets a code — M-0001 — printed on their member card with a QR code (Member card, on their page).
The list shows where each account stands, in the words mess books use: Paid up, Part paid or Unpaid — and Renewal due beside it when a package member's new month has started. Filter the list by any of them, or by Closed.
The meal register
Meal Register
Meal Register opens on today and the meal being served now. Tick each member who eats — each tick is saved at once.
Faster at a queue: type the number on the member card into Member code and press Enter — "12" is enough for M-0012 — or scan the card's QR code with a barcode scanner, which types it in for you.
A meal a member's plan does not include cannot be ticked, nor can a closed member's, nor a day that has not come yet. Once a month is billed from the register its meals can no longer change.
Monthly-package members do not have to be ticked to be billed, but ticking them anyway tells you how many meals the kitchen really served.
Billing the month
Mess Billing
Mess Billing has a section for each method you use. Nothing is billed until you press the button under its preview.
Monthly packages: the members whose next month is due are listed with Renew, and Renew all due bills them all — a member several months behind is caught up. Days away recorded since the last renewal come off at the daily rate if the plan gives them back. With Renew packages by themselves switched on, this happens on its own each morning.
Pay per meal: choose the month and the list shows every member's meals and what they come to. A month can be billed once it is over — meals ticked until then would otherwise never be charged.
Expense sharing: enter what the mess spent (or keep the figure from your expense category), choose by meals or equally, and Work out the shares. The shares always add up to the spending exactly.
A month is billed once. A bill raised by mistake can be voided with a reason; what was paid on it goes back to advance, and a voided package month can be billed again.
A per-meal month
- Ali Ahmed ate 20 breakfasts at 150, 25 lunches at 250 and 22 dinners at 300 in October.
- On 1 November, Mess Billing → October → Raise bills: his bill is 3,000 + 6,250 + 6,600 = 15,850.
- He paid 5,000 during the month as an advance, so it is taken off at once: he owes 10,850.
Payments, advance and previous balance
Mess Members → a member
Take a payment on a member's page. It goes into the cash, card or bank account you choose, like any other takings, and is put against their oldest unpaid bills first.
Anything more than they owe is kept as advance and taken off the next bill the moment it is raised — so advance received and advance applied are each on the record.
The member account reads the way mess books do: this period's bill, the previous dues, what was paid or applied on it, and the total outstanding. Statement prints every bill and payment with the running balance; Send a reminder opens WhatsApp with their balance in the message.
Advance and previous balance
- Monthly mess amount: 500. Previous month still due: 100. Advance paid: 200.
- The 200 pays the 100 first, and the other 100 goes on this month.
- Total outstanding: 400.
الشركات
Mess Companies
Mess Companies lists the companies whose staff eat with you, with how many members each has and what they owe between them.
Tick The company pays for its staff and its members' bills are addressed to the company; a payment taken on the company's page is put against them, oldest first. Untick it and each member pays their own — bills already addressed to the company stay the company's, and its page still takes its payment until they are paid.
Each company has its own statement to print and a WhatsApp reminder with what it owes, and the Mess Report lists dues company by company. A member whose company pays is not sent a reminder for the company's bills.
Closing and reopening a membership
Mess Members → a member
Close membership stops billing and the meal register for that member. What they owe stays on their account until it is paid.
Reopen membership takes them back from the day you choose, keeping their first joining date. On a monthly package the month they come back is billed straight away.
A member with bills or payments on the books cannot be deleted — close them instead.
The dashboard and the Mess Report
Mess Dashboard
Mess Dashboard shows active members, members with dues, the outstanding amount, renewals due and the advance held, with this month's meals, billing, collections and — with a food cost category — food cost, today's menu, the renewals due and the highest dues.
Reports → Mess Report lists who owes what right now, dues by company, and the bills and payments of a period — with PDF, Excel and CSV export, and a company filter for one company's recovery.
With a food cost category, the report adds Food cost and profit, month by month: what was billed for each month's meals, what the food cost, and the difference. A bill counts in the month its period starts — a per-meal October billed on 1 November is October's — and balances brought over from old books are left out. A month not over yet says so, because its per-meal and sharing bills are still to come.
This chapter describes the software as it is today. Every account gets the same guide inside the product, searchable and printable.