Catering Contract Template — Protect Your Event Kitchen & Cash Flow.

Search for a catering contract template and most results are one-page US forms with a signature line and a paragraph about liability. An Indian wedding caterer needs something more specific. Guest counts swing by 20% in the last week, the host family changes the menu after tasting, the venue has its own rules on kitchens and LPG, and the muhurat date cannot be resold if the event is cancelled at the last minute. The Word file on this page is written around those problems. It runs to thirteen clauses and three schedules, and each clause carries a blue guidance note saying why it exists and what figures to plug in. Delete the notes before you send it. What follows is the reasoning behind the clauses that cause the most trouble.

The minimum guarantee is the clause that carries the business. You cook and staff for a number. In the sample it is 400 plates at ₹900, which is ₹3,60,000 before GST, and the client pays that even if 340 people turn up. Pair it with a freeze date, seven days before the event in the sample, after which the final count is locked and reductions are not credited. Without a freeze date, a host who cuts 60 plates the night before has taken ₹54,000 of billing out from under food you have already bought. Write the guarantee as a plate count in Schedule B, not as a sentence in the body, so nobody can read it two ways.

Extra plates need a rate and a ceiling. The sample charges ₹990, the base ₹900 plus 10%, for up to 40 plates over the guarantee. Beyond 40 the caterer serves as far as food lasts and does not promise the whole menu. That ceiling protects you when 462 guests arrive for a 400-plate event and the kitchen has cooked for 440. Extra plates also need a counting method written into the agreement, because the honest disagreement is never about the rate, it is about whether the number was 432 or 462. One spot, running tally, fixed times, initials from the host's representative. The catering bill format page covers how that plays out at settlement.

Tie payments to dates you can enforce. The sample splits ₹4,83,000 with GST into ₹1,44,900 at signing on 20 August, ₹2,41,500 fourteen days before the event on 4 November, and ₹96,600 on the night before service starts. The second payment lands before the bulk purchases, so the caterer is not financing a wedding. The calculator's payment sheet counts the due dates back from the event date, so moving the wedding by a week moves every milestone. Issue a receipt voucher for each payment on the day it arrives, since GST is due on advances for services, and print the FSSAI number on it.

Cancellation is where drafting matters most, and where Section 74 of the Indian Contract Act sits behind the clause. A court can award only reasonable compensation up to the amount named, even where the contract fixes a figure, so a flat 'advance is non-refundable' is weaker than a schedule that tracks your real commitments. The calculator's sample matrix retains 10% at 60 days or more, 30% from 30 days, 60% from 15 days, 80% from 8 days and 100% inside the last week. If the client cancels 20 days out, having paid the 30% signing amount of ₹1,44,900, the retained share is 60% of ₹4,60,000, which is ₹2,76,000, plus ₹13,800 GST, so ₹2,89,800. The client owes a further ₹1,44,900. Keep purchase orders and vehicle bookings, because you may need to show them. Whether GST applies to the retained amount is a question for your CA.

Force majeure deserves its own clause because the law fills the gap poorly. Without one you are left with Section 56 of the Contract Act, under which a contract becomes void when performance becomes impossible, and courts read that narrowly. Name the events you accept, such as natural calamity, a government order closing the venue or restricting gatherings, or a death in the immediate family that calls off the event. Then settle the money on documented costs: you keep what you actually spent or committed, and refund the rest. That is easier to defend to a grieving family than a flat forfeiture, and it is more likely to hold up if it is ever tested. A price rise or a fight between the host and the hall is not force majeure, and the clause should say so.

Do not skip the venue clause. Halls that insist on their own kitchen, charge an outside-caterer fee or forbid LPG are common, and a dosa counter can pull 3 to 5 kW of power. Ask the hall for its catering rules before signing, and write down the facilities you need from the moment your crew arrives, with a cost-plus-a-margin remedy if access is late. Also settle GST and TDS in one place. Catering at an ordinary venue is 5% without credit, 18% only at specified premises, and the place of supply is where the food is served. Where a corporate client deducts tax under section 194C, at 2% for a company or firm payee and 1% for an individual or HUF, it works on the value before GST. On ₹4,60,000 that is ₹9,200 at 2%. Stamp the agreement as your state requires. An unstamped one can generally still be admitted after paying the deficit and a penalty, so treat stamping as housekeeping, not a reason to delay the booking.