One record, signed and cooked from
Re-typing a signed proposal into a kitchen sheet is exactly where the vegetarian count goes missing.
Industries · Food and beverage
Payments for caterers, from the signed proposal to the pack list on the truck
The sale happens weeks before the food does, the headcount changes at least twice, and the whole job is knowing what the kitchen owes on Saturday and what is still owed to you on Monday.
The day, end to end
What an event calendar asks of the system
Six places a catering operation either stays in control of a date or starts guessing.
Deposits and a balance, both dated
Money taken against an event that has not happened yet is a different thing from an unpaid invoice, and the reports should say which is which.
The final count has a real deadline
A number that can still move on Friday afternoon is a number nobody could buy against on Thursday.
Dietary counts, not dietary notes
Allergies written as free text get read once, by the person who typed them in.
Two events, one production sheet
Aggregate to buy, separate to load. Having one and not the other is how a tray leaves on the wrong truck.
Equipment leaves and has to come back
Equipment tracked only in somebody's head is equipment you buy again every spring.
Buying guide
Before you sign anything for a catering operation
Seven questions worth asking any provider, us included.
Does a signed proposal become the kitchen document?
Ask to see the same record from both sides.
Can an event carry a deposit and a later balance?
Ask what the report calls that money before the event happens.
Is there a real final-count deadline?
Ask what changes after it passes, and who is allowed to override it.
Are dietary requirements counted or typed?
Ask for the count of every restriction on one event.
Can one day produce a combined pull and per-event pack lists?
Ask for a Saturday with three jobs.
Does equipment check out and back in against an event?
Ask what happened to last week's chafers.
What is the export when you leave?
Event history, client records and menus. Ask up front.
Questions
Catering questions we get asked most
Why should the proposal and the kitchen sheet be one record?
Because every transcription between them is a chance to lose the detail that matters most, which is almost always a dietary count or a timing change. When the client signs one document and the kitchen cooks from another, the two drift the moment anything changes, and on an event something always changes.
How should deposits be handled before the event exists?
As money held against a dated future event rather than as payment on a finished job. It matters for the reports and it matters for the conversation when a date moves. Treated as ordinary revenue, the month looks one way, the deposit position looks another, and the two are reconciled by hand every time.
What does a final-count deadline actually do?
It gives the kitchen a number it can buy against. Ordering happens days before service, so a headcount that can still move on the afternoon before is a headcount nobody can act on. The deadline belongs on the event record, visible to the client, and should be overridable only by someone who knows what an override costs.
Why count dietary requirements rather than write them down?
Because the line cooks to numbers. Six gluten-free plates is an instruction; a paragraph describing the guests is a paragraph. Counted restrictions also travel onto the pack list, which is where they are needed when the food is already loaded and nobody can read the original email.
How should a day with several events be organised?
Combined for purchasing, separate for loading. The kitchen needs one aggregated pull so it buys once, and each event needs its own pack list so the right trays go on the right truck. A system that produces only one of the two forces somebody to build the other by hand at five in the morning.
Free tools
Two tools to run before the next event books
Both are open to anybody comparing options.
Check what fits your business
The questionnaire asks a caterer the boarding questions — deposits taken months before the date, the balance taken on the day, and the delivery risk a processor sees in the gap between them. That gap is the whole underwriting conversation for catering and this is it in advance.
Statement audit
The statement audit reads a statement you already have and shows what the deposits cost you compared with the balances. Booking far ahead and collecting on the day are two different transactions, priced two different ways.
Talk to someone who has loaded a truck
Tell us about your operation
Four fields. A person reads it, looks at what you are running now, and comes back with what they would actually change.
The promise
We will implement whatever is right for you — including keeping what you have. If your proposals and your kitchen already agree and the only gap is that final counts arrive by text message, that is a deadline field and a notification, not a new way of working.
Payco · Industries · Food and beverage · Catering
Last updated: 2026-08-17