Organize your menu with item groups

What it does. Item groups are the categories you file your menu items under, like Appetizers, Entrees, Sides, and Desserts. Each item sits in one group, or in none, and the group travels with the item onto your events.

When you’d use it. Setting up your catalog, so every dish carries the course it belongs to. Also when you add a line you only sell part of the year, like a Holiday menu, and want those dishes labeled separately from your standard offerings.

Create a group

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

The new group lands at the bottom of the list with 0 items in it.

Put menu items in a group

1. In the top menu, open Catalog and choose Menu Items.
2. Click the item’s name.
3. Click Edit.
4. Pick the group from the Item Group dropdown. Leave it on None to keep the item ungrouped.
5. Click Update Menu Item.

The same Item Group dropdown is on the form when you add a new menu item, so you can file an item as you create it.

What you’ll see. The Item Groups page lists each group with a count of the items in it. The Menu Items list in your catalog shows a Group column next to every item, with a dash for anything ungrouped.

Where the grouping shows up

Item groups are an internal label for you and your team. They show in three places:

• The Group column on the Menu Items list in your catalog.
• Each menu line on an event’s Menu tab, in small type under the dish name.
• The Item Group dropdown, which lists your groups in the order you set on the Item Groups page.

Clients never see them: proposals and invoices print your food lines under a single Food & Beverage heading, with no course breaks.

Change the order your groups appear in

1. Go to Settings, then Item Groups.
2. Use the up and down arrows on the left of a row to move a group up or down.

The order you set here is the order the Item Group dropdown offers when you file an item. It does not change the order dishes appear on an event. Each event’s Menu tab has its own arrows for that.

Rename a group

1. On the Item Groups page, click Edit on the group’s row.
2. Change the Name.
3. Click Update.

The new name shows straight away everywhere that group is used, including events you have already built.

Archive a group

On the Item Groups page, click Archive on the group’s row.

The group disappears from the Item Groups page and from the Item Group dropdown, so nothing new can be filed into it. You can archive a group that still has items in it. Those items keep the group’s name: your catalog’s Group column still shows it, and so do the menu lines on events built earlier.

Archiving is permanent. To use the name again, create a new group with it and file the items in; the new group starts empty.

Good to know.

• An item’s group is copied onto the event line when you add the item, so changing an item’s group in your catalog leaves events you have already built alone. A rename is different: it is the same group under a new name, so every event follows.
• You can change the group on one event line without touching your catalog. On the event’s Menu tab, click the edit icon on the line, open Advanced, and pick a different Item Group. That change applies to that event only.
• Group names must be unique and case does not count, so a second “Sides” is rejected with “Name has already been taken”. A name freed up by archiving can be reused.
• Item groups are for menu items only. Rental items and staff roles do not have them.
• Groups are optional. An ungrouped item works everywhere a grouped one does.

Item groups are one part of getting your catalog set up, alongside menu items, rentals, staff, and packages.