It’s no secret catering can be a stressful field. With an endless array of weddings, birthday parties and business gatherings to prepare for, many catering businesses are constantly strapped for time. Fortunately, caterers who are at the end of their rope can find stress relief through a number of effective time-management techniques. By implementing these techniques, your catering business will become less harried and more efficient.
Online Invoices
Going to the trouble of calculating and designing invoices can be a real strain on catering businesses already flooded with work. At the end of a long job, you want nothing more than to kick back and put your feet up — not create a complex invoice from scratch. That’s where online invoices come in. If you create your invoices online at Aynax, you’ll be able to produce professional-looking invoices in mere minutes, send them to clients without hassle and effortlessly keep your business’s invoices organized.
Planning Sessions
Though crucial to staying organized in any field, planning is particularly important for catering businesses. Sit down with your staff at the beginning of the work week and carefully review your upcoming jobs. Go over the menu items you’ll need to prepare for each event and relay any special instructions you’ve received from the client. To ensure everyone’s on the same page, end each planning session by addressing employee questions and concerns.
By adhering to a strict schedule when catering events, you’ll make sure your clients stay happy — and well-fed. Everyone seems to have a horror story about disorganized caterers ruining important gatherings with slow service and overly-long preparation times. Devoting sufficient time to planning your jobs will ensure your business is never on the receiving end of a bad review.
Cut and Freeze in Advance
When looking for ways to save your business time, consider cutting and freezing certain ingredients in advance. This timesaving measure works in tandem with regular planning sessions. After reviewing your upcoming jobs, make a list of the ingredients needed for each client’s respective entrees. Next, have your staff slice up and freeze the required amounts of meat, fruit and veggies for each job. By getting this crucial preparation step out of the way early, you’re sure to earn the respect of clients who hate waiting for their food.
Regularly Clean Equipment
Keeping your preparation equipment nice and clean can go a long way in saving your business time. Produce slicers, blenders, oven trays and other catering essentials become far less effective without frequent cleanings. Not only will cutlery blades grow dull and ineffective if not regularly cleaned, trays will become prone to stickiness and burning. This ultimately leads to longer preparation times and botched entrees.
All reputable caterers clean their equipment at the end of each job but having a member of your staff clean your preparation tools during jobs can be a real timesaver. After all, clean culinary tools are productive culinary tools. Frequent cleanings will also extend the life of your tools, much to the delight of cost-conscious caterers.
Condense Menus
The desire to make your business stand out by offering clients an extensive list of menu items is understandable. The fiercely competitive nature of the culinary world often requires chefs to master a broad assortment of dishes in order to stay afloat. Unfortunately, large menus have a tendency to cause stress and disorganization within catering businesses. Not only will having to remember a seemingly endless array of recipes make your staff feel overtaxed, purchasing the ingredients for all those dishes is liable to put a strain on your finances. Worse yet, certain clients may feel overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of menu options.
Maintaining a small or medium-sized menu can help your business save time, money and manpower. According to About.com, condensing your menu can also dramatically reduce food spoilage. Rather than requiring your staff to learn a plethora of recipes, have them devote their time to truly mastering a select few. When it comes to fine dining, you’ll find quality is valued over quantity.
As any seasoned caterer will tell you, there’s no shortage of hungry clients. Gatherings packed to the brim with eager diners are being held left and right. So if your business’s schedule allows very little wiggle room, don’t hesitate to adopt some surefire timesavers.
