What it does. 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. It is where Better Cater looks up who to call and who to bill.
When you’d use it. Before you quote a repeat customer, to see what they ordered last time and how often they book. Or when a planner and a billing office are different people and the invoice has to reach the right one.
How to open it
Click CRM in the top menu, then Clients.
The list
Each row shows the client, their primary contact and their location. Search matches client names and their contacts’ names and emails, so you can type the person you spoke to and find the company that pays. The pencil edits a client, and the archive icon takes one you no longer cater for off the list; their past events stay put.
Add Client creates a new customer record. The client can be a company, an organization, a household or an individual. Give it a name, choose a primary contact if you already have one, then click Create Client. The steps are in add a client and their contacts.
A client’s page
Click a client’s name to open it.
| Section | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Client Details | The client’s name, the people you deal with there, and the billing email. Edit sets the name, the primary contact and the billing address. |
| Contacts | The people connected to this client, such as the planner, the person who pays, and the day-of coordinator. Add contact finds someone already in your contacts, or Create New takes a first name, last name, email and mobile phone. Primary marks the one offered first on a new event, Make primary moves it, and Remove takes a contact off this client but keeps them in your contacts. |
| Billing Email | The accounts address for this client. When it is set, proposals and invoices go there even if the event contact is someone else. |
| Billing Address | Fills the location column on the list and prints on the documents. |
| Notes | What your crew needs to remember: where the loading dock is, an allergy in the office, a purchase order number they always ask for. |
| Events | Everything this client has booked with you, with the event name, date, status and guest count. |
Starting an event from a client
New event on the client’s page starts one for that client. When the client has more than one contact, Better Cater asks who the event is for, so that person ends up on the proposal and the invoice. The client, contact, billing address, phone and email carry through to the documents: proposals show them under Prepared For, invoices under Bill To.
Contacts and leads
The Contacts page, also under CRM, lists the same people on their own. Open one to see their events and every client they are attached to, which helps when a contact changes jobs. When a lead turns into an event, the client and the contact are created from the inquiry, so nothing is retyped. See add and track leads.
Good to know.
- Primary is a default, not a rule. The contact you pick when starting an event is the one the proposal and invoice go to, and you can change it on the event’s Details tab.
- Archiving a client takes it off the list. Its past events stay put.