The phone rings during lunch prep. “A wedding in December, about 150. Can you send something?” You say yes, write “wedding Dec 150” on the back of a ticket, and go back to the line.
That ticket is where most events start to slip. The menu gets priced from memory, the proposal gets typed into a document, the deposit lives in a text thread, and by the week of the event nobody is sure which head count the shopping list was built on.
This guide follows that one wedding through CostCook, start to finish. Each section is one step, in the order the app puts them, with the labels you will see on screen. When another guide covers a step in more depth, it’s linked.
1. The call: save it before the stock comes off
On Events, press + New inquiry. Put in what you know: the client’s name and how to reach them, the kind of event, about 150 guests. If they haven’t picked a date, tick Date not decided yet. You can settle it later.
Before you save, fill in Follow-up: Who follows up, and Next follow-up (Today, Tomorrow, In 3 days or Next week). Now “I’ll call them back” is a line on someone’s list.
Then choose Save and build menu, or Save inquiry only if the burner is calling you. Either way the client is saved too, so the next time they call you don’t type them again.
The Events page sorts everything into four groups: Needs attention, Booked · coming up, In pipeline and Past & closed. Our wedding sits in the pipeline until it’s booked.
2. The menu, costed while you build it
Pick a starting point: Start from a saved menu, Build from dishes, or Copy a past event. For a wedding you have done before, copying one is the fastest start. Choose Scale to 150 guests and every copied service is set to 150 servings.
While you build, Event totals sits beside the menu with the food cost, and the food cost percentage next to your target. Swap the short rib for chicken and you see the number move before the client ever does.
If you’re not sure what the price per guest should be, work it out first: how to calculate food cost per guest and margin, markup and your food-cost target both use the same arithmetic the totals do.
When the menu holds up, press Continue to proposal →.
3. The proposal, the way the client will see it
On Send offer, the Customer preview shows exactly the page the client will open. Read it like they will: on a phone, looking for the price and the date.
Choose how long the link stays open under Offer link valid for: 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Press Send a test to me if you want to see the email first, then Send offer to the client.
From here the event says it is waiting on the customer. You can Send a reminder, Copy offer link to send it some other way, Extend link by 3 or 7 days. If the menu has to change, Edit proposal and send the update; Withdraw offer stops the link altogether. If they answer by phone instead, They accepted records it.
4. They say yes on their phone
The client opens the link without making an account. They read the proposal and press Accept proposal, or Ask for changes if the menu or the count needs another look. Changes come back to you, and you update the offer and send it again.
The proposal page tells them Nothing is charged today. Their yes alone does not book the event. Book the event checks the agreement and deposit, or records why you chose to proceed without them. A client’s acceptance stays separate from your decision to hold the date.
5. The agreement, with the proposal attached
Write your contract once. In Settings › Contracts, choose Upload contract if you have one, or Write terms, and Set default on the one you use most.
From the accepted proposal, send the agreement. Use Preview full contract to read it, then Approve and send. The accepted proposal rides along as Schedule A, so the menu and the price they agreed to are part of what they sign.
Send it for e-signature with Send for signatures. If the client would rather sign on paper, that works too: under Signed on paper?, choose Upload a signed copy.
6. The deposit, asked for and tracked
On the event, Ask for a deposit. Under How you will take it, choose one:
- A card, by email: the amount comes from the agreement, and Ask for a deposit and send the link emails the client a pay link. This needs Stripe connected and an email address for the client.
- My own card processor, if you already take cards another way.
- A check, cash or a transfer, recorded by hand when it arrives.
The block then shows Asked for against Received, so you can see what’s owed without opening the bank app. The balance works the same way: Request payment when you’re ready to ask for it. If a card balance is still owed three days before it’s due, the client gets a reminder with a pay link.
7. Book the event
Book the event is its own step, and it checks your work. If something is missing, it lists it under Still missing before you book:, the signed agreement, the deposit, whatever isn’t there yet.
Sometimes you book anyway: a regular client, a deposit promised by Friday. Book anyway asks why, and your reason stays on the event for whoever asks in six weeks.
Behind all this sits the kitchen draft. After their yes, press Prepare the kitchen draft; the deposit is asked for from there. It isn’t on a day yet, and it doesn’t pull anyone onto the crew.
When they want one document of what they owe, open the order’s Money tab and press Issue invoice. It’s made from the proposal they accepted, so the total is the one they signed, and what they’ve already paid comes off it. Send invoice emails them a link that doesn’t expire. If you take cards through CostCook, it has a Pay button for what’s due next. If you collect it yourself, it shows the payment instructions you saved. They can print it or save it as a PDF.
8. Confirm order: the kitchen’s numbers lock
Before you confirm, look at the order’s checklist. Review allergens stays there until every dish’s allergens have been reviewed. Under Guest restrictions, add what the client told you, or mark that there are none. A nut allergy someone mentioned on the phone then gets checked against every dish instead of living in your head. More on that in guests’ restrictions.
When the head count is final, press Confirm order. The dialog says what happens: confirming locks quantities and prices, and the shopping, prep and pack lists become checklists. The order then reads Confirmed, with the date, who confirmed it and prices locked.
Supplier prices can keep moving after that. What you and the client agreed to stays put. If the count changes the week before, and no supplier order has gone out yet, Reopen as draft lets the menu update the numbers again, and confirming again locks the new figures. What should change when 40 guests show up late is its own guide: the client added 40 guests.
The calendar counts each day’s orders and vans against the limits you set, so the order tells you whether that Saturday has room.
9. Buy it
The confirmed order offers Supplier orders, one per supplier. For each one, choose Email, Print, or I’ll buy it if you’re picking it up yourself. Read the order before Send supplier orders. Each supplier gets only its own lines.
The Shop list is To buy, in whole packs, so 3.3 cases of something becomes 4, with the working shown. Press Count shelf items before you buy, and what’s already on the shelf comes off the list. The full walk-through is how to turn a catering menu into a shopping list in whole packs.
If a supplier’s price changed since you quoted, see how supplier price changes reach the recipes you already costed.
10. Cook it and pack it
Prep is the list the crew works top to bottom, from the notes saved when you confirmed. Scaling 150 portions of a recipe written for 24 is where you come up short at service, so read how to scale a catering prep list once.
Print what you need from the order: the Prep list, the Pack list, All labels for the dishes. On Pack, Equipment lists what the menu’s equipment list holds, the chafers and hotel pans, plus anything you add for this event.
Pack is a separate checklist from prep, because prepped is not loaded. Eight pans prepped and seven in the van is still one open line, and the pack list keeps it in front of you at the loading door.
11. Receive it
When a supplier order was sent, its receiving checklist is already built. At the back door, go line by line: if it all came, mark it here. If not, choose Fewer came, More came, Swapped, or Didn’t come, and put in how many came and what they charged.
Anything short goes under Still to get when you press Finish check-in, so the missing case doesn’t vanish into a stock count. More on what to check before you sign: the delivery arrived wrong. When the invoice arrives, check it with how to check a supplier invoice, and if the supplier sends a credit for the short case, see where a credit memo goes.
12. Close it out
Closeout opens the day after the event. Open Food-cost closeout on the order. It sets Planned food cost beside Actual food cost, at what you paid, and tells you Over plan by, Under plan by or On plan.
Close it with Close food-cost review. If some purchases are still missing, Save as a likely estimate keeps it honest until they’re in. How that number is built, and what it can and can’t tell you, is in what should the food have cost, and what did you actually spend.
Once the event day has passed, it sits under Past & closed, and the next time this couple’s friends call, Copy a past event starts you from a menu you already know the cost of.
Where it stops
A few things CostCook does not do yet, so you know before December:
- A kitchen draft holds one service, so an event with a lunch and a dinner is booked by hand for now.
- Confirm order checks the day’s room, not whether the agreement is signed or the deposit has arrived. That’s what Book the event is for.
- Nothing is tracked after Packed: no delivery step, no drivers and no staffing roster.
Run the next one through it
The next time the phone rings mid-prep, skip the back of the ticket. Press + New inquiry, tick Date not decided yet if it isn’t, and name who calls them back.