Читать книгу Start & Run a Catering Business - George Erdosh - Страница 15

There are many cooking software programs available, designed for both the professional and the home cook. These programs not only offer new recipes, but also allow you to organize and manage your own recipes. They scale ingredients up and down for smaller or larger yields, create shopping lists, provide dietary information, and more. Personally, I have never found cooking software useful for my professional needs. You can download and test most software to see if it fits your catering style.

Professional catering and event management software programs are several steps above cooking software. There is a large selection to choose from; the Internet is the best source for research. To briefly summarize, most programs are designed for large banquet and catering companies, hotels, and restaurants, but some are designed with small businesses in mind. Many of these complex programs are designed for people who work full time managing a large staff, inventory, food orders, and many events and reservations. These are not user-friendly programs. Besides, they are expensive, starting at around $1,500 for the basic version. You can request a CD-ROM or download a demonstration version from the manufacturers’ website. Testing the software will give you a feel whether it will help your business or is an unnecessary business expense.

Software suitable for a small catering business tends to be simpler and more user-friendly; it costs $750 USD and up. There are not many programs available. An example of one I tested that appears to be simple, user-friendly, and suitable for a small-business caterer is CaterPro (www.caterprosoftware.com). More sophisticated programs for larger caterers cost well over $1,000 USD. My suggestion is to start your business manually. Eventually you can request trial software to test and decide for yourself.