Building your menu

What it does. Your catalog holds everything you sell: the dishes and drinks, plus the rentals and staff you bill for. Build it once and pull items into any event instead of retyping them.

When you’d use it. Your first week, getting what you sell into Better Cater so events and proposals come together fast.

Start with item groups

Item groups are the categories your menu items are filed under, like Appetizers, Entrees, Sides, Desserts, and Beverages. Each item shows its group in your catalog and on every event menu it lands on.

1. Click your profile icon in the top right, then click Settings.
2. Click Item Groups in the left sidebar.
3. Click Add Item Group.
4. Enter the name, like “Appetizers”.
5. Click Add.

Use the arrows on the left of each row to move a group up or down. That order is the order the groups are offered when you file an item. There is more on renaming and archiving groups, and on where the grouping shows up.

Add your menu items

1. In the top menu, open Catalog and choose Menu Items.
2. Click New Menu Item.
3. Enter the Name.
4. Pick the Item Group it belongs to.
5. Pick the Tax Category: Food, Non-Alcoholic Beverages, or Alcohol. This is what decides how the item gets taxed.
6. To cost the item from its ingredients, pick a recipe in Linked recipe.
7. Under Pricing, enter the Price you charge. Enter the Cost too if you want to track your margin; with a recipe linked, it comes from the recipe.
8. Click Create Menu Item. The item opens on its own page.

Go back to Catalog, then Menu Items, and repeat until everything you sell is in the list. You can always come back and add more. The optional fields, like purchase units and automatic charges, are covered in Add a menu item.

The rest of your catalog

The Catalog menu holds three more lists that work the same way:

• Rental Items for tables, linens, chafing dishes, anything you rent out.
• Staff for the roles you bill, like server, bartender, or chef.
• Packages for a set of items you sell together, like a BBQ package. Build the package once and add it to an event in one line.

What you’ll see. Your items appear in the Menu Items list with a Group column showing what each one is filed under. From then on you add them to an event from its Menu tab instead of typing them in again.