Catering Management Software for Professional Event Caterers.

The problem shows up on Saturdays. The workbook's sample week starts with a puja lunch for 150 on Wednesday and a corporate lunch for 180 on Friday. Saturday carries a sangeet dinner for 500, a wedding lunch for 650 and a housewarming for 120, which is 1,270 guests against a kitchen that can serve 1,200. Sunday adds a 700-guest reception and a 60-guest kitty party. The week totals 2,360 guests, and one day is over capacity at 106%. A board that adds up guests per day tells you that before you sign the third Saturday booking. The sheet marks a day above 85% of capacity as tight, which is the point to plan prep the day before instead of hoping.

Staff is the next constraint. At the sample norms of one steward per 28 guests, one captain per ten stewards, one cook per 60 guests and one helper per 35, the 500-guest sangeet needs 18 stewards, 2 captains, 9 cooks and 15 helpers. That is 44 people, and at ₹800, ₹1,200, ₹1,600 and ₹700 a shift the crew costs ₹41,700. Saturday as a whole needs 113 people against 60 on your books, a gap of 53, at a cost of ₹1,06,600. The steward ratio is the usual buffet norm of 25 to 30 guests; the cook and helper ratios are rough starting figures to replace after you time your own kitchen. Wages vary by city. Find the gap on Monday and you can book extra hands. Find it on Saturday morning and you pay a premium or serve late.

Buy once, not five times. The procurement sheet merges the indents of five events into one list. Its sample turns 256 kg of mixed vegetables, 150 kg of rice, 72.5 kg of paneer and 96 kg of curd into a single order of ₹86,511, split by supplier type into ₹29,062 of grocery, ₹40,002 of dairy and ₹17,447 from the vegetable mandi. Each row builds the message you paste into WhatsApp for that supplier. One consolidated order a week means one price conversation and one delivery slot per supplier, and it gives you a firm basis to ask for a better rate. It also shows when two events want the same 30 kg of paneer on the same morning.

Wastage starts with the buffer you cook. Cooking for 500 guests, the sample event prepares 540 plates, an 8% buffer that costs ₹16,800 in raw material at ₹420 a plate. That may be right for a wedding where guests bring guests, and wasteful for a corporate lunch with a fixed list. Track plates cooked against plates served on every event for a month, then set the buffer by event type. Watch the other end as well: if the guest count drops after cooking has started, your minimum guarantee protects the revenue but not the raw material you have already bought. Write the guarantee, the cut-off date for changes and the leftover policy into the contract.

Profit per event is the number most caterers do not know. Take the workbook's 500-guest lunch at ₹950 a plate brings ₹4,75,000 of food revenue, ₹40,000 for live counters and ₹35,000 for staff and transport charges, ₹5,50,000 before GST. Costs come to ₹3,92,500 across raw material, disposables, gas, crew, transport, hire, miscellaneous and an 8% overhead share, leaving ₹1,57,500, or 28.6%. The ₹27,500 of GST is collected for the government and is not income. If attendance falls to 430 with a guarantee of 450, profit drops to ₹1,46,560, a loss of ₹10,940, because the guarantee keeps most of the revenue. Kaliquid lets you tag expenses to a contract so this view builds itself.

Do you need software yet? A rough judgment, not a rule: with three or four events a month a spreadsheet like this one is enough. Once a week routinely holds five or six events, the cost of coordination, meaning double-buying, missed calls and unpriced changes, tends to exceed the cost of a tool. Be clear about what Kaliquid covers: sizing, kitchen tickets, vendor indents, line-wise GST, advance vouchers, Tally export, margin-masked access and profit by contract. It does not run staff rosters, payroll or a kitchen capacity board, which is why this page gives you the workbook. Pro is ₹999 a month per hall, or ₹750 a month if paid yearly, with custom Enterprise pricing. If you run a catering-only business with no hall, ask how the plan applies.