Set up your account

What it does. 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. Set them once and every event you create starts from them.

When you’d use it. Your first week, before the first proposal goes out. Come back to these pages later when a rate or a policy changes.

Before you start. Have your logo file and the terms you already send clients to hand, so you can finish in one sitting.

Open Settings

Click your profile icon in the top right, then Settings. It opens on Business Location. In the left sidebar, the links above the divider are your own login. The ones below it shape your business, and the four pages in this article are in that group. The rest of them are in the full list of settings pages.

1. Business Location

This page holds the details that print on your documents.

1. Fill in Name, Phone number and Email address. All three print in the footer of every proposal and invoice, so use the name your clients know and the number you want them to call.
2. Fill in Tax ID if you have one. It is optional, and when you fill it in it prints at the top of proposals and invoices, under your name or logo.
3. Check Time zone. It is set when you sign up, and it sets the clock for every event time you see in the app.
4. Click Choose File beside Logo and pick your logo. A PNG or JPG works, and a transparent PNG is fine. Adding your logo to invoices and proposals covers what it changes and how to check it.
5. Pick a Brand Color. It is a list of six colors, and a new account starts on Emerald green. Your choice colors the line under your logo and the document title on proposals and invoices.
6. Check the address under Address Information. It prints in the document footer.
7. Click Update Location.

Your logo replaces your typed name at the top of proposals and invoices. Leave it empty and your business name prints there instead, so nothing goes out blank.

2. Tax Settings

A new account starts with one rate named Sales Tax at 5%. That is a starting point, not your rate.

1. Click Tax Settings in the sidebar.
2. In the Tax Rates section, click the pencil icon on the Sales Tax row.
3. Enter the rate you charge in Rate. Type 8.5 for 8.5%.
4. Under Tax Categories, check every category this rate should tax.
5. Click Update Tax.

The categories are the kinds of things you sell, and they decide what the rate applies to. A new account has nine: Food, Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Alcohol, Equipment & Rentals, Service Charge, Administrative Fee, Staffing & Labor, Gratuity and Delivery Fee. The starter rate arrives checked for the first six and unchecked for Staffing & Labor, Gratuity and Delivery Fee. What is taxable differs by state and by what you sell, so match the boxes to the rules you follow and check with your tax advisor if you are unsure.

Once a rate has been used on an event it locks. Open it after that and you see a “Tax Rate Locked” notice: the name and the percentage can no longer be changed, the categories stay editable, and the button reads Update Categories. To charge a different percentage from then on, click Add Rate and put the new rate in your service zone in place of the old one. Service zones, extra rates such as an alcohol surcharge, and making a single event tax exempt are covered in setting up the tax you charge.

3. Service Charge & Gratuity

This page holds the two percentages a new event starts with.

On a new account, Service Charge is 20% and is added to every new event. Gratuity is 18% and is not added until you turn it on. A row that is on reads “On every new event” beside the percentage.

1. Click Service Charge & Gratuity in the sidebar.
2. Click Edit on the row you want to change.
3. Set Display Name, which is how the line reads on the document your client gets.
4. Set Percentage.
5. Pick a Tax Category if you are offered a choice. This is the category your tax rate looks at to decide whether the charge is taxed, and when only one category fits it is shown without a choice.
6. Tick Tax Exempt if this charge is never taxed.
7. Tick Add to every new event to put it on each event from the start.
8. Click Save Service Charge, or Save Gratuity on the gratuity row.

Service charge and gratuity are two separate lines, and each one you turn on is added to every new event. You can still remove either one from a single event.

4. Contract Templates

Contract Templates is empty on a new account, and a proposal with no terms prints no Terms & Conditions section at all, so your deposit and cancellation rules go unsaid.

1. Click Contract Templates in the sidebar.
2. Click New Template.
3. Type a Name, such as Standard Terms.
4. Tick Set as default template.
5. Paste the terms you already use into Content.
6. Click Create Template.

The template shows in the list with a Default badge. Only one template is the default at a time, so marking a second one default clears the first.

From then on, every event you create starts with that wording, and it prints at the bottom of the proposal under Terms & Conditions. For an event you created earlier, open the event, go to the Notes tab, find Contract Terms and click Edit, pick the template under Load from template, then click Save. Picking a template replaces whatever is in the box.

The wording is yours, so check it with your legal advisor if you are unsure.

What changes on the proposal

Open an event, find Event Totals on the right, click Create proposal, then click Preview to read it the way your client will. Building an event and sending the proposal are separate tasks.

• Your logo at the top, or your business name if you have not uploaded one, with your Tax ID under it.
• Your brand color on the line under the header and on the document title.
• Tax lines calculated from your rate and the categories it covers.
• Your service charge, and gratuity if you turned it on.
• Your terms at the end, under Terms & Conditions.
• Your business name, address, phone number and email address in the footer.

What you’ll see. None of that had to be typed into the event. Every event you create from now on starts with the same details, so the next proposal is ready to send as soon as the menu is priced.

Good to know.

• Your business details, logo and brand color are read each time a document is built, so a new logo shows up on the next proposal or invoice you create, for an old event or a new one. A document you already sent keeps the version your client received.
• Your tax rate, your service charge and your contract terms are copied onto an event when the event is created. Changing them later shapes new events and leaves the events already on your calendar as they were.
• Editing a contract template does not rewrite events that already carry it. To move an event onto the new wording, pick the template again on its Notes tab.
• Note templates, item groups, reusable fees and discounts and the calendar feed are the other settings pages, and they are described in the settings overview.