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A catering contract describes the providers you’ll present to a shopper and the fee phrases you require. Catering contracts make sure you and your shopper are on the identical web page and scale back the chance that you’ll expertise enterprise losses resulting from a scarcity of fee or bank card chargebacks. A catering contract ought to embrace a listing of providers and expenses, stipulations about social gathering dimension, and detailed fee and cancellation phrases. Utilizing a catering contract template saves you time when writing new contracts.
We’ve included all of the related sections in our free catering contract template you can obtain under:
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Who Ought to Use a Catering Contract
All caterers offering meals, beverage, and/or occasion administration providers ought to use contracts. Whether or not you might be catering a single anniversary celebration, agreeing to offer weekday lunch to a close-by workplace, or donating to a nonprofit occasion, that transaction ought to have a contract that totally describes your obligations to the shopper and the shopper’s obligations to your corporation.
Methods to Use a Catering Contract
Utilizing a catering contract solely requires just a few primary steps. You need to begin with a template and replace it on your occasion earlier than it’s signed by the shopper. Right here’s the way to do it:
Step 1: Begin With a Contract Template
Begin with a primary catering contract settlement. A catering contract ought to embrace the caterer and shopper’s contract data, the date and time of the occasion, occasion worth, tax price, fee phrases, refund and cancellation coverage, and visitor rely coverage.
A catering contract ought to have a extremely seen signature block for each the shopper’s and the caterer’s signatures, and you could need to embrace preliminary blocks in your most necessary phrases and situations—like your refund and cancellation coverage—to make sure that shoppers learn them.
You need to use the free catering contract template I supplied above, or use a authorized providers web site like Rocket Lawyer to draft a contract template for you.
We like Rocket Lawyer as a result of it offers a slew of authorized providers and help with paperwork for a month-to-month payment that’s inexpensive for small companies like caterers. Go to Rocket Lawyer.
Step 2: Tailor the Template to Your Occasion
Along with your contract template in hand, you’ll subsequent replace the contract particulars to match the occasion. Take care to replace each date and greenback quantity all through the contract. Nothing is extra unprofessional than sending a contract to the shopper with issues like “$XX” and “XX%” in it.
Then, you need to connect the related paperwork that you just consult with within the contract. These may very well be a preliminary menu, a beverage service record, a rental record, and a full, itemized bill that features staffing prices. Add a area to the underside of every attachment for the client to preliminary and date.
Step 3: Ship the Contract to the Shopper
Ship the finished contract to your shopper in your most popular method. It’s typical to e-mail contracts and request that signed copies be scanned and emailed again to you. You can even use a doc signature service like DocuSign to handle signatures and guarantee clients signal and preliminary in all the suitable locations. Most catering administration software program consists of some type of digital signature monitoring device too.
No matter technique you utilize, be sure to are capturing professional signatures. If there’s ever a dispute about getting paid for an occasion, the best safety you’ll have is a signed contract.
Step 4: Signal the Contract
When the client returns the signed and dated contract, together with their deposit, signal the caterer’s part of the contract. The contract shouldn’t be totally executed till it has each signatures. It’s a finest follow to not signal the contract your self till you’ve got totally acquired the deposit, which means the cash is in your checking account.
Catering Contract Advantages
Catering contracts make sure you and your shoppers perceive each other. Your contract makes clear what service you might be obligated to offer and what quantity your shopper is obligated to pay for these providers.
A Contract Helps You Get Paid
A catering contract lays out the fee phrases, permitting you so as to add clauses for late charges or detailed fee schedules. Your catering contract is your alternative to get the cash upfront if you want it to buy provides or safe employees forward of an occasion. So, you gained’t should dig too deeply into your personal pocket to make preparations for a shopper.
I’ve additionally seen—a number of instances—how having an in depth, signed contract helps catering companies win chargeback disputes. When a shopper makes an attempt to pressure a refund for a non-refundable deposit by initiating a chargeback, a signed contract with clear cancellation and fee phrases usually at all times ends the dispute in your favor.
A Contract Communicates Clearly
A catering contract makes it explicitly clear what providers you might be offering and if you find yourself offering them. When working with catering shoppers, there are tons of emails, textual content messages, and off-hand conversations. In these informal conversations, it may be straightforward for you or the shopper to misconceive whether or not an merchandise is included within the bundle, or whether it is merely a request. If an merchandise shouldn’t be included within the contract, it isn’t a part of the providers you might be offering.
A Contract Retains You Organized
Busy caterers are always sending out new proposals, writing new contracts, and dealing occasions. It’s unattainable to maintain each occasion’s particulars in your head. A catering contract retains all of an occasion’s data in a single place. So, you possibly can simply see a shopper’s contact data together with their requested menu and the worth you quoted them.
In case you add your contracts to a cloud-based server like Google Docs or Dropbox, you possibly can entry them from any laptop or smartphone. This retains you each organized and nimble, permitting you to consult with the contract whether or not you might be in your workplace or at an offsite occasion.
Ideas for Utilizing a Catering Contract
Utilizing a catering contract is simple, however there are nonetheless some finest practices to bear in mind. After years of fielding occasion inquiries and dealing lots of of occasions, these are my prime ideas for making your catering contract be just right for you.
Use Your Contract Constantly
If you’re ever tempted to not use your catering contract, cease your self. You must use a contract with each single occasion or order. Simply replace the contract to mirror what modifications you want to match the occasion. Even if you’re donating meals to a nonprofit occasion, use your contract so that everybody concerned stays on the identical web page about what you might be delivering. For donations, a contract can even aid you monitor the worth of the product you donated, which is useful for tax functions.
Even with pals and companies , use a contract. Over time, I bumped into many misunderstandings from catering shoppers who had been pals of the chef and thought that sure perks can be included of their occasion or that they might pay with a verify on the day of the occasion.
When an association is predicated on handshakes and pleasant conversations, it’s straightforward for these misunderstandings to pop up. As a result of I used contracts for each single occasion, I used to be capable of right any misunderstandings effectively earlier than the day of the occasion. All the time use your contract—no exceptions.
Replace Your Contract Template Frequently
Past the on a regular basis updating to make your contract template match a particular occasion, take the time no less than every year to evaluate your general contract template. In case you often run into a particular difficulty (like shoppers assuming espresso service is included), add a clause to your contract that addresses it. Do you want to replace your cancellation and refund coverage? Does it make enterprise sense to replace your fee cadence or require a bigger deposit upfront?
Examine for Signatures
Nothing acknowledged in your contract issues until the factor is signed. So double-check that each signature and preliminary block are full earlier than confirming with a shopper. If the contract is lacking signatures or initials, ship the contract again to the shopper with a pleasant reminder mentioning the sections they missed.
Catering Contract Regularly Requested Questions (FAQs)
Increase the sections under to study extra about frequent questions on catering contracts.
Most catering contracts start with a template that the caterer updates to suit a particular occasion or ongoing enterprise relationship. Your contract ought to embrace fee and cancellation phrases, in addition to the main points of the occasion location, date, and begin and finish instances. Embody detailed details about menus and an itemized bill as attachments to the contract and request a shopper’s initials on every attachment to make sure they’ve learn and agreed to the main points.
A catering contract ought to embrace the caterer and shopper’s contact data, the date and time of the occasion, complete value tax price, fee phrases, deposit, refund and cancellation coverage, and particulars of the way you rely occasion attendees.
A catering contract additionally wants a signature block to gather the shopper’s and the caterer’s signatures. It’s normal to incorporate attachments to your contract, like an itemized bill that particulars the total expenses, a banquet occasion order (BEO) type that summarizes the total particulars of the occasion, and any invoices from subcontractors (like tools or tent rental corporations). Your contract ought to embrace a listing of any attachments you embrace.
Most catering contracts are service agreements for a particular, one-off occasion like a marriage or convention. Several types of catering contracts usually apply to preparations the place a caterer often prepares meals for a big entity, like a office that serves lunch to staff. With an ongoing association like that, there are numerous methods a caterer and office can work collectively.
In long-term catering preparations, there are 4 foremost contract sorts: cost-plus, fastened worth, revenue and loss, and concessions. The primary three are frequent in office catering agreements, whereas a concessions contract is extra typical with vacationer sights and sports activities venues. In lots of long-term catering preparations, the shopper group could have its personal staff draft the contract.
Backside Line
Writing catering contracts is a vital a part of operating a catering enterprise. Utilizing a catering contract template saves you time writing new contracts and helps be sure that you talk your fee phrases and different situations clearly.
