Catering companies have specific needs to manage food processing and distribution, which are addressed by catering software. This type of software primarily helps caterers with order management, production planning, delivery, and invoicing. Some solutions also provide features that support marketing and sales efforts. Catering software enables catering companies to plan food production according to customer demand and increase the accuracy of their deliveries. Catering software can also help with analyzing the efficiency and the quality of the services that they deliver.
Taking into account that catering can be a critical part of organizing events, this type of software needs to integrate with event management software. While payment processing functionality is usually included in catering software, some catering solutions integrate with payment processing software. Most catering software solutions also integrate with accounting software.
To qualify for inclusion in the Catering category, a product must:
- Allow users to create and update menus, which can be shared with customers via web portals, social media, and more
- Manage customer orders and schedule deliveries
- Process orders to create the type of food purchased by customers
- Include multiple payment options and payment processing functionality
- Allocate and manage personnel during events