Guide · Event orders
BEO change orders: what to do when the event order changes
Written by a hotel banquet operations manager ·
When a BEO changes after it has gone out, confirm the change in writing, compare it to the old order field by field, walk it through the kitchen, the floor, the room and the paperwork in that order, tell only the people on that event, and take the old printouts out of circulation. The printable change log below records each change on one Letter page.
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Wide form: swipe sideways to see all of it, or print it.
| Date and time | EO # | Event | Field | Was | Now | Who changed it | How it reached us | Told (names) | Time told |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Practice sheet, adjust to your hotel. From hotelwright.com.
1. Get it in writing, and know who agreed
A change that only sales knows about splits the kitchen from the floor. Before anything moves, get the change in writing (an email, a revised BEO, a change notice) and note who on the client side and who in sales agreed to it. If it was said on the phone, write down who said it and when.
This guide covers what operations does with a change. What the client owes, or whether a change is allowed after a deadline, is a matter for your property's policy and your contract. Follow your property's policy.
2. Compare it field by field
Look at the revision date or version first. Then list what moved:
- Count: expected, guaranteed or set
- Time: setup, start, end or strike
- Room
- Menu and special meals
- Bars: number, type, hours
- Service style: plated to buffet, one course more, poured wine added
A change in one of these usually moves two or three others. A guarantee up by twenty also moves the set count, the number of servers and the buffet line.
3. One sweep through every department
Go in the same order every time, so nothing gets skipped.
- Kitchen. The new count and any menu change, before anything else. The kitchen has the longest lead time.
- Floor. Recalculate the crew. If the count goes up, call for more people now, because the later you ask the fewer will say yes. If it goes down, decide who to release, and don't do it by reflex: nobody already assigned should be cut because of a number that may move again. Check the guarantee cut-off before you decide.
- Room. Layout, linens, glassware and bars for the new count.
- Paperwork. The Daily Event Sheet, the line-up card, buffet labels, the staff schedule.
4. Kill the old paper
Old printouts can cause wrong setups long after the change. Put the date and version on every page you print, so a copy can be compared at a glance. When you reprint, mark what changed, hand the new copy out at line-up and take the old one back, and don't stack the new copy on top of the old. Keep the old versions in a folder for the record.
5. Tell the people on that event, not the whole team
A change to a Saturday wedding is news to the people working the wedding. Tell them directly, in person or by message, and write down who you told. Telling everyone teaches the team to ignore your messages.
6. Keep a change log
For every change, record what changed, the old and the new value, who changed it, when, and how it reached you. It takes two minutes, and it helps settle the "I never heard that" conversations. The printable above is a log you can keep in the binder.
7. How Hotelwright handles it
Hotelwright doesn't write BEOs; your sales or catering system still does. It reads them, and it is built for the middle-of-the-week change.
- One change at a time, or the whole week. Apply a single change notice to one event, or upload the revised week and Hotelwright compares it field by field. Unchanged lines stay as they were.
- Your edits are never quietly overwritten. A field that a person or an earlier notice set shows as a conflict, with every value and who set it, and you pick.
- Counts re-run, but not below the people assigned (Team plan). Counts you have locked are left alone, and an unlocked count is never lower than the number of people already assigned.
- What changed goes Stale, and is kept. A printed sheet or label set that the change affects is marked Stale instead of being replaced; the board tells you what to reprint. The reprint highlights the changed cells.
- A log of changes. It prints for one day or for everything since the last print, with who made each change and where it came from. There is also a "who to tell" list for each changed event, built from the people assigned to it (Team plan).
- Restore points. One is taken before every upload and every change notice. A manager can go back to one, and the restore itself is logged.
- Notifications (Team plan). After a day is published, a change to the room or the times, or a guarantee move of 10% or more, notifies the people on that event. The 10% is a setting you can change.
FAQ
What banquet managers ask.
What is a BEO change order?
A BEO change order is a revision to a banquet event order after it has been issued: a different count, time, room, menu, bar or service style. In an operations department it triggers the same sweep every time: kitchen, floor, room, paperwork.
What should happen when the guarantee changes after the cut-off?
On the operations side, the same sweep as any change: tell the kitchen, recalculate the crew, and decide who to call or release. Whether the change is accepted, and on what terms, is a matter for your property's policy. Follow your property's policy.
How do I stop staff using an old BEO?
Print the date and version on every page, hand out the reprint at line-up and take the old copy back. In Hotelwright, a printed sheet that a change affects is marked Stale and the reprint highlights what changed.
Does Hotelwright overwrite my edits when a revised BEO is uploaded?
No. A field that a person or a notice set is never quietly overwritten. It shows as a conflict with each value and who set it, and you choose which one to keep.
Can I undo an upload or a change?
Yes. A restore point is taken before every upload and change notice, and a manager can go back to one.