OotaOS Catering Quote Builder
A catering quote is three lists and four percentages: what people eat, who serves it, what you hire in, and then service charge, tax and the deposit you ask for up front. The arithmetic is not hard — it is just tedious enough that it gets done in a spreadsheet that nobody else can open, or in a message thread with a number at the bottom and no breakdown behind it. This builder does the multiplication and hands you a PDF the client can read.
The formula, in the open
- A package line = price per guest × the number of guests on that package. Leave a package's own guest count blank and it bills the whole event; fill it in when only part of the party is on that menu.
- A staffing line = hourly rate × hours.
- An extra is a flat amount — hire, transport, a cake.
- Subtotal = packages + staffing + extras.
- Service charge = subtotal × your service-charge percentage.
- Tax = (subtotal + service charge) × your tax percentage. Tax is applied after the service charge, because in most places a service charge forms part of the consideration for the supply. Where your jurisdiction says otherwise, the two lines are shown separately so you can see exactly which one to change.
- Total = subtotal + service charge + tax.
- Deposit = total × your deposit percentage; the balance is the rest.
- Per guest = total ÷ guests — the number a client actually compares between caterers.
Every figure is your own input multiplied out. There are no assumed margins, no typical rates and no benchmark percentages anywhere in this tool.
A worked example
An engagement lunch for 80: 68 guests on a ₹950 non-vegetarian set menu and 12 on a ₹880 vegetarian one — ₹64,600 and ₹10,560, so ₹75,160 of food. Three servers for six hours at ₹450 an hour each is ₹1,350 an hour, or ₹8,100; a head chef for eight hours at ₹900 is ₹7,200. Crockery and linen hire is ₹12,000. Staffing ₹15,300, extras ₹12,000.
That is a subtotal of ₹1,02,460. A 10% service charge adds ₹10,246, giving ₹1,12,706 to tax; 5% tax on that is ₹5,635.30, for a total of ₹1,18,341.30. A 30% deposit is ₹35,502.39, leaving ₹82,838.91 on completion — and the figure the client will actually compare, ₹1,479.27 per guest.
What moves the number
The per-guest package rate dominates: at 80 covers, ten rupees a head is ₹800 before the percentages, and the service charge and tax then multiply it. Staffing is the line most often under-quoted, because the hours that get counted are the serving hours rather than the setup and clear-down either side of them — quote the shift, not the meal. The deposit percentage changes nothing about the total and everything about your exposure if the event moves.
The PDF
The Download PDF button produces a real PDF file — not a print dialog — laid out as a client-facing quote: the event details, every line with its arithmetic shown, and the totals block. It carries a "Powered by OotaOS.com" credit in the footer, which links back here. Nothing is uploaded: the file is generated in your browser and saved straight to your machine.
Try it
The fields below are the worked example. Replace them with your own event.