Tips

Catering Software is great for managing customers, calenders, and to-do lists for events. Use their calender features with CostGuard's powerful production capabilities to grow your business. After expanding recipes, or creating requisitions, toggle back to the catering program and note what you did. That way, all information for a party is in one location.

Catering Interface

CostGuard has an optional interface that works with popular Catering Management programs.  The value of the interface lies in the strengths of the two software programs.  If you are a caterer or an event manager, CostGuard keeps your inventory costs and counts up to date.  You will have accurate cost information for pricing your parties.  CostGuard will also track the party inventory usage via requisitions.  In the kitchen, CostGuard will expand recipes and create orders and production sheets based on the customer counts.

 

The Catering programs are great for proposals and keeping track of the party status.  When you import the data from CostGuard into the catering program, you will have accurate, up-to-date information for your staff.  Don’t forget, you can use CostGuard for non-food items as well, such as linens, plates, cups, and silverware: this makes pack-out sheets a breeze.

 

The Catering Interface imports accurate menu and item costs into your Catering Program.  Because the costing information is correct, you can price events with confidence that you will make your targeted profit.  You can create estimates based on your actual food costs instead of figuring out the profits by hand.

 

If you would like to purchase the Catering Interface, or learn more about which Catering systems we interface with, please visit us at www.costguard.com

 

If you have standard catering menus, create them in CostGuard.  Export them to the Catering program on a regular basis to keep your information in that program fresh.  If you customize menus for each customer, start in the Catering Program.  Select a party that needs updated information.  Print or save any necessary information such as menus, and expected number of customers.  Keep this information handy, or minimize the catering software program before opening CostGuard.

1.       Start CostGuard.  Use CostGuard to add inventory items and create recipes and requisitions for the party.  Save your work as you go.  Create a menu for the party based on the recipes and inventory items needed for this event.  Save the menu and requisitions by the party name and date to find quickly.

You can use CostGuard to plan the party.  Save your work, and later when the actual event draws near, you open up the party menu.  For details on how to do all of this, click here.

2.       When finished with the details, close out all windows in CostGuard.  Click Recipe, click Recipe Manager.  Select the menu and any other recipes needed for this event.  Click the  button.

The Recipe Export pop-up will appear.  Click the button next to your catering program.

3.       Click OK.  The Save As pop-up will appear.  Give the file a recognizable name, and click save.

4.       Minimize or close CostGuard.  Open your Catering Software program and follow their directions for importing the file.

All of the cost information associated with this party is now in the Catering program for your use.  You can create proposals, invoices, and to-do lists for the event with accurate costing and count information.  Please contact your Catering Software support if you need instructions for importing into that system.

5.       As time goes on, and the party approaches, use the programs as necessary.

In your Catering program, make changes to the menu, counts, and track customer notes.  Create your party specific to-do lists for the event.  Then you can input the information in CostGuard.  For example, you can create the requisition sheet in CostGuard for the party.  Use Recipe Conversion to adjust your recipes based on the changing guest counts.  In Recipe, use the Method Tab to makes notes specific to this event.  When it is time to order the food, use the Requisition and Shopping Cart  feature in CostGuard so you can identify, calculate, and manage all of the party costs.

6.       Make sure that as you make changes in one program, you update the information in the other.

Or simply use the Catering programs customer note feature and to-do list to manage this process.

7.       You can import your Catering Sales into CostGuard.  This will allow you to use the Sales Reports features.

One note – if you do import the sales, be careful with the Requisitions feature.  If you Requisition items, and then import the sales, you will deplete your Inventory twice.  If you want to use both features, then adjust Inventory after the party, or simply view and print the requisition.  Suspend the Requisition for future reference, but do not save it.

Continue regular path