The running-total column on the night sheet, more than the floor printed on the quote, decides whether the invoice is a reading of the evening or a negotiation after the coats have gone.
A kitchen cannot work out the pricing model on its own. It can price a named plate against a count, a package against a clock, or an attached list against a floor. Headcount certainty decides which one holds. So does the buyer's need for a figure that survives an internal budget meeting. The quote has to carry that choice in words the invoice can repeat.
Per head: a named plate and a number
Per-head pricing is a menu and a count. A starter and a main, dessert if the brief asks, sometimes house wine and water. It is the honest model for a seated dinner. The kitchen sizes the order. Seminar lunches and wedding breakfasts land here for the same reason: the buyer sees a cost per person.
The risk is the gap between the announced count and the chairs that fill. If eighty were booked and sixty-two sit down, the food was still bought for eighty. The quote has to say the guaranteed number is the billing number. Repeat it when the count is confirmed, because a client who first sees the rule on the invoice will dispute it.
A mixed night is common on restaurant buyouts: dinner per head, then a bar on consumption. Keep two lines with two rules, because one blended total is how the argument starts.
A package needs a clock
A package bundles food, drink, sometimes the room, into one price per person or per event. A day delegate rate sits here, or an evening with a timed bar; residential seminars too when the night is sold with the day. Buyers like it because they can defend a number internally. Venues like it when they actually know the cost of each line. The method for packaged seminar offers is the same work: a visible scope, a visible clock, few options.
The tax treatment follows the same rule. HMRC's rates guide says restaurants must charge VAT on everything eaten on their premises. VAT Notice 709/1 treats third-party catering for events and functions, including wedding receptions, parties and conferences, as standard-rated. A service charge you add is standard-rated. A tip the guest freely adds is not.
For an eight-hour delegate rate, HMRC's land and property manual treats room hire and catering as separate supplies. The consideration has to be apportioned. Room hire may be exempt unless you have opted to tax. Catering is taxable. A 24-hour rate adds accommodation as a third slice. A single package line that never splits those pieces is tidy for the sales email and messy for the return.
The other risk is the open bar with no duration and no cap. Consumption then eats the package from the inside.
A consumption floor is a substitute for walk-in trade
On consumption, the client pays what is served, from an attached list, and commits to a revenue floor in exchange for the private hire. Natural model when the headcount is a guess: a buyout, or a standing reception that slides into a late bar.
The floor stands in for the trade you turn away. Start from what that slot usually takes in ordinary service, then adjust for the day and the season. A Friday in December is not a Tuesday in February. That is how a sound floor is set. Copying a neighbour's floor is how you either scare the enquiry off or give the room away.
Write it as a budget to spend, not a penalty. Floor excluding VAT, to be spent on food and drink from the attached list; any shortfall invoiced as a private-hire fee. Spell out whether service charge, VAT, extra staff and hours beyond the slot count toward it, and always attach the price list.
A mid-evening check is the cheap insurance. A manager who says you are still short of the floor gives the organiser a chance to order. Saying nothing until Monday is how the invoice turns into a dispute.
Restaurant buyouts live here more than anywhere. It is one of the factors that keep a private-hire restaurant profitable, and the format most restaurants settle on once they have been burned by an open carte. If the client brings their own caterer, the money moves to hire, service fees and corkage. The margin then depends on how you manage suppliers and caterers.
| Model | When it holds | What you lock | What blows up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per head | Seated meal, set menu, stable count | Menu and guaranteed number | No-shows you never wrote as billable |
| Food and drink package | Seminar, day delegate, timed bar | Contents and a clock | Open bar with no cap |
| Consumption plus floor | Buyout, drinks by the glass, uncertain count | Floor and price list | No mid-event tally |
| Mixed | Dinner then a party | Two lines, two rules | One blended total |
| Dry hire plus outside caterer | No kitchen, client brings food | Hire, service fees, corkage | A caterer you never priced |
The guaranteed count is a purchase order
The guaranteed count is the number you bill, whether those people sit down or not. In practice, the kitchens we work with lock it between a week and three days out, earlier when fresh product has to be ordered and later for a flexible buffet. After the deadline the number does not go down, though it can still rise, if the kitchen can take it, at the unit rate.
That deadline is not a commercial whim. GOV.UK food-business duties include a food-safety system, allergy control and supplier records. You cannot run those from a count that arrives with the first taxi. Allergen lists travel with the guarantee. Late diet requests can carry a supplement. Say so.
No-shows bill at the guarantee. Ingredients and labour were sized for it. For bookings made far ahead, a useful variant we see: an estimate at signature, a guarantee at the agreed date, a written upward tolerance until a late cutoff. Stable numbers are also what let you calculate event profitability on something other than hope.
The deposit at signature sits on the same calendar. One timeline. Not three.
Service charge, wine, overtime
Extras are where invoices go grey. An hour past the slot, a wine a step above the package, a coffee break added at 3 p.m., corkage on bottles that arrive in a taxi: put the likely ones on the quote as priced options and the unlikely ones in the terms with a unit rate.
Overtime needs an hourly figure, staff included, written before the night rather than a percentage invented after midnight. Wine upgrades work as a short ladder with a readable gap per bottle. Coffee and water, if not included, per person.
VAT Notice 709/1 again: if you add a service charge, it is standard-rated. A freely given tip is not. Put the charge on the quote if you apply it. Do not discover it on the night. The standard VAT rate is 20%.
These small lines often move a seminar total. They are also how a venue grows average deal size without rewriting the base model.
Three blocks on the quote, then stop
A readable catering quote has three blocks: the chosen base, which names the model, the price and the guaranteed count; a short list of priced options; and the terms. A long option list does not help the buyer compare. It postpones the reply. To show more, send a second quote.
Name things in the client's words. Three-course dinner, wines included, eighty guests. Not an internal menu code. List what is included, optional, and billed on actuals. Restate the model in one sentence: firm price per guest on the count guaranteed a week out. When the answer is that it is too expensive, those lines are what let you defend the quote without dropping the price.
That is what the event quotes in Joinways are built for. The model, the floor, the guaranteed count and the extras sit as fields. They are not retyped from last Thursday's Word file.
Write the rules once and attach them every time.
- The model is named in one sentence: per head, package, or consumption against a floor.
- The guaranteed count is confirmed in writing by the agreed date and is the billing basis, attend or not.
- Any rise after that date is accepted only if the kitchen can take it, at the unit rate.
- The floor is stated excluding VAT, with what counts and what does not; the shortfall is a private-hire fee.
- Hours beyond the slot are billed at the hourly rate on the quote, staff included.
- Drink outside the package follows the attached list; corkage on bottles the client brings.
- Menus, allergies and special diets travel with the guaranteed count; late requests may carry a supplement.
- Deposit, payment dates and cancellation use the same calendar as the count.
