Better Cater help center
Guides to running your catering business on Better Cater: menus, events, taxes, branding, and more. Can't find what you need? Contact us.
Getting started
Set up your account
Four settings pages decide what prints on every proposal you send: your business details and logo, your tax rate, your service charge, and your contract terms.
Creating your first event
An event is one job: the client, the date, the guest count, the food, the staff, the rentals, and the money.
Building your menu
Your catalog holds everything you sell: the dishes and drinks, plus the rentals and staff you bill for.
Calendar overview
The calendar shows a month of your events at a time, colored by where each one stands.
Add a calendar note
A note puts something on your calendar that isn't a booking. It blocks out the day so you can see it when you check whether you're free.
See your events in Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar
Puts your Better Cater bookings on the calendar you already use. Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar can each subscribe to your schedule.
Dashboard overview
The dashboard answers what you'd otherwise open four screens for: how busy this week is, what's confirmed, who hasn't booked, and who still owes you money.
Menus, packages & staff
Build and price your menu
Prices what you sell from what you actually pay for it.
Packages overview
A package is a priced menu bundle you sell again and again: the client sees one line with one price, and your team sees the dishes and quantities behind it.
Add a menu item
Menu items are the individual dishes, drinks, and services in your catalog. Add one once and reuse it on any event or package.
Add a recipe to a menu item to cost it
A recipe breaks a menu item down into its ingredients, so Better Cater can calculate what that item costs you to make from its ingredient prices.
Organize your menu with item groups
Item groups are the categories you file your menu items under, like Appetizers, Entrees, Sides, and Desserts.
Creating packages
A menu item package is a pre-built selection of menu items you can apply to any event in one line, instead of adding each item every time.
Set a package item to a set amount
A set amount pins one item in a package to a flat count, so it stays at the number you type however many guests come.
Staff overview
Staff Roles is your labor catalog: the server, bartender, chef, setup crew and event captain jobs you charge for.
Create a staff role
A staff role is a job you bill for, like server or bartender, saved once with its rate.
Events, proposals & BEOs
Run the event day
Turns the event you already built into the documents your crew works from on the day: the banquet event order, the packing list, and the kitchen report.
Rental items overview
Rental Items is your equipment catalog: the tables, chairs, linens, chafers and serving pieces you charge for on an event.
Add rentals and staff to an event
Adds rental equipment (tables, chairs, linens) and staff positions (servers, bartenders, coordinators) to an event, priced alongside the menu.
Track an event from lead to paid with statuses
Every event carries one status: Inquiry, Tentative, Confirmed, Completed, or Cancelled.
Duplicate an event
Duplicating an event copies a past or upcoming event onto a new date, bringing the menu, staff, rentals, charges, timeline, client, and venue with it.
Send a proposal to a client
A proposal is the priced quote you send before a client commits.
Build a BEO for an event
A banquet event order, or BEO, is the single sheet your crew works from on event day.
Clients & leads
Clients overview
Clients is your customer list: the businesses, households and individuals you cater for, the people you deal with at each one, and every event they have booked.
Tasks overview
Tasks is a shared to-do list for your team: the follow-ups that keep events moving, grouped by how soon they are due.
Add a client and their contacts
A client is who you're billing: a company, an organization, or a person.
Create a lead form for your website
A lead form collects inquiries from your own website. Embed it on one of your pages, or link to it from a button.
Embed a lead form on your website
Puts your lead form on a page of your own website, so visitors can send an inquiry without leaving your site.
Add a lead and track your inquiries
A lead is an inquiry you haven't booked yet, and your leads list tracks every one of them until it books or falls through.
Turn a lead into an event
Converting a lead creates the client, the contact, and the event in one step, using the details from the lead so you don't retype them.
Invoices & payments
Create and send an invoice
An invoice is the bill you send a client for a booking.
Record a deposit or payment
Recording a payment logs money you've received against a booking, so the balance updates everywhere it's shown: the Billing tab, invoices, and reports.
Add a fee, discount, service charge, or gratuity to an event
These are the charges an event carries on top of its menu, rentals, and staff: a delivery or setup fee, a discount, the service charge, and gratuity.
Reports
Reports overview
Reports builds a PDF across every event in a date range: what the kitchen makes, what you buy, what your events earned, and the sales tax you collected.
Run a sales tax report
Builds a PDF of the tax you collected across a date range, broken out by tax and rate, and again one event at a time.
Taxes & branding
Settings overview
Settings holds the details Better Cater uses on every event, from your business name and tax rate to the templates and fees you reuse.
Setting up taxes
Taxes tell Better Cater how much tax to add to an event, and which parts of the event get taxed.
Adding your logo to invoices and proposals
Puts your logo at the top of every invoice, proposal, and report you send, so your paperwork looks like yours and not like a form letter.
Easier to use than to read about
Set up your menu and build your first event today — these guides will be here if you need them.
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