Catering: platters, buffets and business customers

A sandwich round and a catering business sell to different people in different ways — one wants lunch by half eleven, the other wants a buffet for twenty on Thursday week, on account. Pekkish treats them as two kinds of shop. Here's how to choose, and what a catering shop does differently.

Single orders or catering?

When you set up a shop we ask which it is. It's a one-time choice for that shop, so it's worth getting right:

Single orders — sandwiches, lunches, a daily round. Customers collect or you deliver, they order for today or the next few days, and each order goes straight to your kitchen the moment it's placed.
Catering — platters, buffets and events, mostly for businesses. Delivery only, ordered days ahead, and every order is confirmed by you before it's a booking. Account customers can pay by invoice.

Do both? Set up a second shop for the other trade — a shop is one or the other, never a mix, because the two trades want different deadlines, payment and menus. You'll find the same link under Shops you run in your hub and under Settings → General → Sister shop. You can link the two (below), and you're signed in to both with the same account.

Notice: days before, by a time

A catering shop takes orders with notice. Under Settings → Ordering & availability you set two things: the notice in days, and the cut-off time. Together they mean "orders for a date must be in by this time, this many days before it". With two days' notice and a 2pm cut-off, an order for Wednesday has to be in by 2pm on Monday — after that, Thursday is the first date a customer can pick.

Your customers see this on your storefront ("Delivery orders by 2pm, 2 days ahead"), and the date picker only ever offers dates you can still make. The advance ordering window sets how far ahead they can book — a catering shop starts at 30 days; single-order shops usually keep it to a working week.

Delivery only

A catering shop delivers. There's no collection option to switch on, and your location page won't ask — the delivery area, cut-off and delivery times are all under Ordering & availability, and the address on your location is where you cook, not where customers come.

Two shops, linked

If you run a lunch shop and a catering shop, link them under Settings → General → Sister shop. Each storefront then shows the other in its menu — a customer who found your lunch site can get to the catering one in a tap, and the other way round. Linking from one side links both; unlinking from either unlinks both.

Confirming orders

A catering order is a request until you accept it. When one arrives you get an email and a push (if you use the app), the order shows as To confirm on your orders list and a band on your dashboard counts what's waiting. Nothing is made and nothing is charged until you answer — the customer is told they're waiting.

Open the order and you'll see what's asked for: the date and the time it should arrive, the firm it's for, their PO number if they gave one, and the platters. Then:

Accept — for a card order, the customer is emailed a link to pay by a date (three days, or sooner if the order's own deadline is closer); it's booked the moment they pay, and if they don't the date is released. For anything else, accepting is the booking: the customer gets their confirmation and the order reaches your kitchen the way any order does.
Decline — say why, if you can ("fully booked that day — the day after would be fine"), and the customer is told with your words. Nothing was booked or charged.

A customer can withdraw a request until you've answered. If you'd rather orders came straight through without a request step, switch off Review every order before it's booked under Ordering & availability.

Organisations: your account customers

A business that orders from you regularly is an organisation. Set one up under Organisations in your shop menu: its name, the billing address for invoices, an accounts email if bills go somewhere other than the person ordering, its payment terms (your shop's default is 14 days), and a standing PO number if they always use one.

Then add the people who order for it. Two ways:

By email domain. Give the organisation its domain — acme.co.uk — and anyone with a confirmed address at it who orders from you asks to join, now and in future. The organisation's own people decide: its members and its accounts address get an email with a one-click approve, and members can also answer under My account on your site. Until someone says yes they pay by card. Public services like gmail.com can't be claimed.
By hand. Add someone by email on the organisation's page — that's approved at once, because you've spoken to them, and it's how an organisation gets its first member. If they're new to Pekkish they get an account and a link to set their password. You can also change who a customer orders for from their page under Customers, and answer a request yourself from the organisation's page if nobody at the organisation does.

Why the organisation decides and not you: you can judge an order — you confirm every catering order anyway — but only Acme knows whether Sam may spend Acme's money.

Everyone on an organisation sees the same thing under My account on your storefront: every member's orders with you, every invoice and whether it's paid, and the monthly statements. Any of them can pay a bill. When a member orders, the checkout already knows who they're ordering for — they're not asked for a company name — and their PO number field is prefilled with the standing one if there is one. Taking someone off an organisation leaves their past orders and invoices where they were.

Paying by invoice

Under Settings → Payments a catering shop takes card and invoice. Card works as described above. Invoice is offered at checkout only to members of an organisation, so "who's allowed credit" is answered by who you've put on one — there's nothing else to switch on per customer.

When you accept an order paid on account:

The order is booked straight away — there's no pay-by step — and reaches your kitchen like any other.
An invoice is raised, numbered in sequence for your shop (INV-00001, INV-00002…), dated today and due on the organisation's terms. It goes as a PDF with the customer's confirmation, copied to the organisation's accounts email.
Your shop's details on the invoice — your address and a footer for bank details — are under Settings → General.

The organisation pays either by card from the invoice page on your storefront (it's marked paid the moment Stripe confirms) or by bank transfer, which you record yourself: open the invoice under Invoices and Mark paid, with a note if you like. Either way the organisation gets a receipt. Invoices that fall due unpaid get a reminder that day and weekly after, and the Invoices menu item counts what's overdue.

Cancelling an order voids its unpaid invoice. A paid invoice on a cancelled order stays — that's money you've had, and it's between you and the customer.

On the 1st of each month every organisation you invoiced the month before gets a statement: each invoice, whether it's paid, and the balance. It's a summary for their accounts — the invoices are the bills.

Printing

A catering shop prints on A4 — an order is a sheet of platters, quantities, the delivery time and the firm it's for. Labels are for a sandwich round (one sticker per bag) and aren't offered.

VAT

If you're VAT-registered, switch it on under Settings → General → Invoices and add your VAT number. From then on the prices you enter are ex-VAT: customers see "£30.00 + VAT" on your menu, the checkout adds VAT at each product's rate and shows the total they'll pay, and every receipt says how much of it was VAT. Invoices come out as proper VAT invoices — ex-VAT lines with the rate on each, then net, VAT and the amount due, with your VAT number on them.

Switching it on sets every product still at 0% to 20% (delivered catering is standard-rated); change any that are zero-rated on the product itself, and new products start at 20%. A discount or a credit comes off the VAT-inclusive price, so the VAT on the receipt is on what was actually paid. Pekkish's percentage is worked out on your sales ex-VAT — the tax is HMRC's, not revenue.

Stuck on something? Contact support.