Laravel 4 Models, how to use them

You are going to need a model for evey table, because there are other things related to models that cannot be shared, like column names and validation, but if you think you are repeating yourself, you can create a BaseModel and add all methods or even overload Eloquent methods in it:

class BaseModel extends Eloquent {

    public function whatever() {

    }

    public function save(array $options = []) {
        // do what you need to do
        parent::save();
    }

}

Then create your models using it:

class Order extends BaseModel {

}

But you don't need much on a model, if your models and tables names follows Laravel pattern (in this case the table name would be 'orders'), then you just need this simple declaration to have a model working for your table.

Edit:

Controllers are meant to transfer data from a model to a view, but they should not know too much about your data, almost everything about them should lies in your models ("Fat models, skinny controllers"), so they need to know just enough to have "control".

class OrdersController extends BaseController {

    public function process()
    {
        $order = Order::find( Input::get('orderId') )->process();

        return View::make('orders.showProcessedOrder')->with('order',$order);
    }

}