Quote software for caterers & events – from first quote to paid invoice

Now that our inquiries are in the system, the most important thing is naturally to get a quote out to the customer as quickly as possible. Univents helps with that by already generating quote drafts – from emails using AI, from booking pages, and based on the customer’s inquiry and the items already put together for it. We can then either send it out automatically, edit it further here, or put together a completely custom, hand-built quote. For quotes, we can choose the language and have the system generate translations automatically whenever we want or need to. We also have several layouts to choose from, which we can define ourselves. A layout is the actual design of the quote – how it’s laid out, whether we include nice photos, whether it’s portrait or landscape, and what it ultimately looks like once the quote is generated as a finished PDF. We can configure all of that here. We’ll go into that in more detail in another video. Then we have our quote settings. That means we can set the document name here, of course select the customer, and check whether the invoice details match up. We can also enter the quote date, add a contact person, and set the service period, in case it wasn’t already filled in automatically by the system. We also have the option to set a validity period and decide when reminders should go out – both to the customer and to us, we can configure each reminder here. If a schedule already exists for the event, we can generate that straight into the PDF too, so the customer can immediately see how their event will actually run on the day. We also have several free-text fields we can adjust per quote – if there’s specific information about this particular event, it can go straight into the PDF. We can also filter our line items here, or add new ones. That means we can either search our list and pick items out – and we’ll immediately be shown a suggestion to apply the matching pricing condition. In this case, we’d get a discount from a certain guest count onward. Let’s remove that for now. Or we can browse through our full categories and pick line items from there. On top of that, as you can see, the system calculates automatically: it works out per-guest products based on the guest count, calculates travel costs, or hourly and per-guest-per-hour rates for certain items, so all of that information is already there automatically. We can also add different sections – partly for better organization, but we can also use them directly as sections in the quote. And we have the flexibility to show the subtotal after each section, or leave it out and only show it at the very end. We can fine-tune all of that here. We can also add whole templates instead of adding items one by one. So I can go in here and add a complete section template – it then pulls in all the line items we have there as sections with individual items straight into my quote. Line-item templates can also be created easily in settings, or saved directly from the quote itself as a template for future use. Then there’s some further fine-tuning. We can of course also add completely free line items – they don’t have to be tied to a product, they can be one-off items too – and enter the cost price and sale price here, which gives us the margin at the same time. We can also add a discount to a line item or mark it as optional in the quote. And if we have a special menu or buffet selection just for this customer, we can put together a menu or buffet directly in the quote. That means we have the full dishes, recipes and ingredients ready for the kitchen and production, while the customer just sees the buffet itself in the quote. We can also apply an overall discount to the whole quote, and we have the option to set certain PDF settings – for example, whether we want the totals shown gross or net, or whether we’d rather not show individual line-item prices at all and only the total. We can also choose to include the product photos we’ve stored directly in the PDF, or keep the order exactly as we have it here – otherwise it defaults to alphabetical order by category and product. Last but not least, we can also select our templates here. That means we can set it up so that, once the quote is accepted, our event template is applied to the event automatically and the event is marked as confirmed. That means the schedule, shifts and tasks are already set up in the event and assigned to the right people – exactly as we need them for the Firmenfeier template. Then we can either save the whole thing as a draft, or, once we’ve filled in the required fields, generate the PDF or send it straight to the customer.