Caterease

Enhance your Inhouse System by using Caterease

Opmerkingen: Software has enabled me to double my business without adding extra support staff. It forces me to answer questions about my events ahead of time so when the event date arrives, I am fully prepared.

Pluspunten:

Well thought out! Software can be customized to do just about anything. It is easy to use - learning curve is approximately 6 weeks to become very comfortable with it. A myriad of reports to choose from and customize. Absolutely the best customer service of any software I've purchased. Very quick and clear response time, Questions are answered within a day. Phone and email support unrivaled. Developer is willing to work with End user.

Minpunten:

1. Mouse scroll! I use this program at least 6 hours/day; finding those hiding scroll bars and scrolling is continually frustrating and annoying, especially when the detail grids are expanded. The program looks like Outlook and acts like Outlook with the exception of this feature. 2. Recommendation for data entry: In some places 'tab' gets you to the next column, and in some places it's 'down/up' arrow. Often frustrating to remember which to use. It's a waste of time to use your mouse when the 'tab' would do. I would recommend that this feature be streamlined so it's always either 'tab' or 'arrow' key (mouse still available, of course).

The name says it all! Caterease has put the Ease into our Catering Operations

Opmerkingen: One of the biggest benefits to Caterease is all there integrations. From credit card processing with Vantiv to event staff scheduling and communication with Nowsta to EASY, STRESS FREE online ordering setup through Zuppler, Caterease has centralized multiple outside operations of our catering company into one place. This alone has cut our time it takes to prepare, schedule and collect payment for every event we create in half, if not more. Caterease has boosted our business operations and continues to help in our growth on a daily basis.

Pluspunten:

The customization of EVERY ASPECT of Caterease is one of the reasons why we love it so much. Everything can be made to suit your individual businesses needs. You can use their basic templates for prints such as contracts, receipts, billing statements and more or create your own with whatever information you would like. Every single bit of information can be displayed or removed from prints. Anything!! You can even customize your screen views. We have 6 different users linked to our Caterease and each users desktop/window views are customized down to the theme color. We have 2 divisions to our catering company, one is rather simple and the other is very complex. We have one user set up for the simple division and have cut out 80% of the features Caterease offers from that users display because we do not use them with that division so now, those features that we use for the complex catering side don't clutter up or confuse our simple home meal delivery user. The reports and query features are amazing. You can pull a report or query for literally any piece of information the you want. Want a query of all events that had more than 20 peoples worth of rice pilaf in the month of June 2 years ago, its one click away with Caterease. I've been in the catering business for 10+ years and Caterease is hands down the best Catering Software out there if you want to make things your own and customized to your business. I could go on for days about why I love Caterease!

Minpunten:

Because it is so big and customizable, it does take a while to set up. You can come into it new and work off templates and be just fine but if you want to really take advantage of all the great features Caterease has, be ready to spend some time setting it up. Although it may take some time to setup, once you do, you are all set! With the endless video tutorials and help center articles, you have everything you will need to set things up your way.

Caterease is a LifeSaver

Pluspunten:

It is easy to use, it comes with lots of great tools, and it is customizable to your company.

Minpunten:

It takes a long time to truly understand how to maxmize the use of its settings.

Cheap for the program but you get what you pay for

Opmerkingen: Worst customer service experience I have worked with in regard to fixing the issues we had. As a customer service company who handles clients everyday this program was to be utilized to help that process. In turn it didnt do much of that at all and was an antiquated system that required a connection server that made issues arise everyday. It impeded days of business where i couldn't retrieve my BEOs because the citrix system was down or inoperable. When i would call or email I would generally get sent to more than one individual to try and solve the problem. Functions of the program that where said to integrate, did not and when asked when they would be live again they told me "we're working on it" and it still hasn't been resolved to my knowledge. Even for the money the program is basically a days worth of formula tracking away from being an excel spreadsheet

Pluspunten:

The ease of understanding of the windows based screens and exec function of the program

Minpunten:

Customer service, the third party integrations, the antequated system boot

To use Caterease or not to use Caterease

Opmerkingen: My hotel used Caterease for many years and were very content with the final product

Pluspunten:

It was very user friendly and easy to navigate

Minpunten:

The Inability to make changes to a Banquet Event Order

Outdated and not worth the money

Opmerkingen: I found over my two years with Caterease, the very tool I purchased had become more of a chore than a tool. Nothing about the application made my job easier. I spent more time inputting ingredients, menus, recipes, events, emails, and clients than I'd ever like to admit, and at the end of two years nothing ingredients didn't calculate on menus correctly, menus didn't calculate recipes correctly, and all of their templates for emails/prints/reports look like garbage.

Pluspunten:

Not much, really. Other than than storing contacts, there was not a single facet in Caterease that made the system easy to use for the end user what-so-ever. I would have been better off tracking events, ingredients, and inventory in Google Sheets for free instead of paying $1800 a year for Caterease.

Minpunten:

From the top: Logging in and lack of mobile availability: From a PC, you have to log into a citrix client before accessing your application. You can have the fastest PC on the planet and still have to rely on the speed of their Citrix server to get anything done (which isn't the best.) There is also a VERY bare-bones mobile "companion" app that is almost useless. You cannot add clients or events, adjust the calendar, etc. The only thing you can do is view your current calendar and contact list. And to make it worse, it doesn't store your password AND they have a forced password reset EVERY TWO WEEKS. The application itself: It's very dated and not user friendly. What should take minutes takes upwards of an hour. Want to copy and paste inside the app? That's going to cost you $600 more a year for the "professional" version. Yes, you cannot copy, duplicate, or paste an event without paying for premium service. I already was paying $1800 a year, that's an insane markup for basic functionality. Everything looks like it was made in the Windows 98 era, and hasn't been updated since. Reporting: Reporting is a joke. Very limited, very complicated, and overall useless. Again, unless you pay more! Printing and emailing: Because the application runs through Citrix, printing is very complicated (even worse with wireless printing). Emails, you can create emails directly from Caterease, but it's a gamble if the email sends the caterease-generated attachment.

Very Powerful, can do a lot, but too much for my needs

Opmerkingen: Caterease kept all of my work schedule running smoothly, it was a bit of a pain for inventory tracking but it can be done.

Pluspunten:

Caterease has a ton of options and easy to get information out of it as long as you are a subscriber. The Subscription is pretty steep but if you are doing 6 and 7 figures in sales it is worth it. I am a small shop it was too much for what i needed.

Minpunten:

The Price is too steep for my shop. I have found other software providers but there are some short comings i have to deal with.

Caterease is powerful and there's a lot to it.

Pluspunten:

The sheer amount of features with Caterease is astounding. There is so much it can do from scheduling and pricing events to inputting menu items, and much more! The integrated tutorials are helpful.

Minpunten:

The interface isn't as intuitive as I would like. It seems like it's in need of a facelift. I feel like we maybe use 20% of all the features we're able to use.

Caterease is customizable and easy to use on the go!

Pluspunten:

How customizable it is! We were really able to take the software and use it how it best suited and helped our company. And each of our Sales Team can customize their screens and views to how it best suits their day-to-day needs. The Caterease team constantly provides updates and strives to better fit everyone's needs. We recently switched to the web-based server and it makes a huge difference for our Sales Team.

Minpunten:

As with any software, there are bugs/glitches, etc. but the support teams works quick to fix them and update the software with changes.

Buyer Beware! Deceptive Pricing & Salespeople

Opmerkingen: It's been absolutely horrible.

Pluspunten:

Caterease seems to be a very full featured program... unfortunately we never really got the opportunity to use it

Minpunten:

Their sales reps and pitches are extremely deceptive! - They advertise a monthly price, but that is for 1 user with a fairly limited feature set. If you were one user, there would be no need for a program like this. - They have "teaser" pricing -- give you a discount in year 1 (which they make up for with an implementation fee) -- and then scale it up in subsequent years. They're not stupid -- they know that this platform would be very hard to transition away from. - They will say anything (including lie right to you, over email) to get you to sign up. When you call them out on their lie on day 1 of implementation, sorry, no refunds. STAY FAR AWAY

Makes my job so much easier!

Pluspunten:

This software is fabulous - you can access your program from anywhere in the world when you have Caterease Connect. The reports/queries are easy to manipulate to find the requested data. The engineers listen to our specific needs - requests show up in the next build! The software is VERY simple to use and can be customized for specific needs. The mobile app is great to check upcoming events on the fly. You can run a query to see how much of each item on your menu you've sold for a certain period of time, the forecast what the change in revenue would be if pricing increases/decreases. You can compare sales for a certain month /period to previous years, forecast future time periods and more. The time savings is phenomenal. What used to take hours can be produced in minutes. Our company has used Caterease for so long, I don't know how we would function without it.

Minpunten:

The ONLY problem I have is sometimes tech support doesn't answer the phone because they are tied up on another call. BUT, emailing the support desk usually gets an answer quickly.

Contracts are easy than ever to put together.

Opmerkingen: This product pays for itself. It is so easy to use and I love that it is cloud based.

Pluspunten:

I love that we are able to save line items such as our most popular menu items and their prices. It saves a ton of time being able to select the menu items from a list instead of retyping the product and price every single time. We write up about 100 contracts a day and about 40% of them have similar items so it saves a ton of time.

Minpunten:

While lots of menu items and venues can be saved in the program, it would be helpful if we could also save the tax for the certain county. Each time we need to go and recheck what the tax is for certain areas.

HR's perspective

Opmerkingen: Caterers is the hub of the business. All staff have access to the platform and use it to improve communication. Can't do business without Caterease!

Pluspunten:

I use Catereasr daily to add and archive staff, verify schedules and presence, pulling reports and communicating with all team members at the same time. Caterers is easy to use, intuitive and customer service is superior!

Minpunten:

More customized views, staff information options

Caterease is easy to use and set up. For our daily use it provides most of the needed functions.

Pluspunten:

Online login function and can be used anywhere. Easy to copy multiple events, but pricing doesn't always copy. Query funtions for reports, finance and daily events.

Minpunten:

When updates are made it takes too long to work out the kinks and get our individual set ups back to our settings. Would like better ways to compare year to year financials.

Wonderful Program

Opmerkingen: my office really loved this program ,

Pluspunten:

Caterease makes a smooth and functional job entering and viewing of catring data , easy for both clients and staff to use . The program is constantly adapting to the needs of the clients and listens to the needs of catering professionals

Minpunten:

the tracing function was in need of improving but the programs itself updates and adapts frequently

Caterease is simply the BEST!

Opmerkingen: Because we love this software so much, there isn't much we don't like about it. Try it out and you'll understand what we mean.

Pluspunten:

I have been using this amazing program for over 24 years. It is the most versatile and user friendly software I have ever used. The prints are flexible - yet SO professional. Anytime I call or email, the response time is amazing, their customer service far exceeds today's standard! I always appreciate the friendly, patient, & efficient support staff, they have an awesome product and an amazing staff to support it.

Very easy to use and great support and training available!

Pluspunten:

Ease of use, dependability, easy training, fast support, extensive thought put in to each aspect of program.

Minpunten:

On site training is very expensive. However, we have found the website and support desk can help us through most questions and training for free.

tracking the data

Opmerkingen: I can track what menus a customer chose, help anticipate what we may need in future.

Pluspunten:

I like being able to easily track the events - venues, menus, counts, dates, it's all there. I like that I can export the data as needed in other documents, etc. I like that it's uniform in presentation.

Minpunten:

There is a lot of different potential ways to use the data, and I sometimes forget the path to some of the information I need; I need to keep a resource book to remember how to do some things that I don't need to do often.

Not user friendly for everyone

Pluspunten:

Purchased this product because it had such good reviews and felt that it made my job easier as a small catering business we someone usually books an event with us while attending someone else event and having a moblie app handy was really nice.

Minpunten:

My co-owner did not find this product useful. We were not able to interface our Quickbooks online with this software which caused me to double work.

The customer service was great. They helped us get the most out of the software.

Pluspunten:

It is incredibly convenient to help run my business out of. Having everything in one place makes life so much easier.

Minpunten:

I did have to go through many tutorials to understand how to use a lot of it. However, the tutorials helped so much.

Nice App

Pluspunten:

Caterease helped with keeping me organized and efficient. It was easy to search clients, message them, and set up Proposals.

Minpunten:

It would be better if I could link my payroll to the app for a seamless transition.

I have used their web-based software for 3 years

Opmerkingen: I agree with Jamie, I have no idea how anyone could have a negative experience with Caterease. I’ve used their web-based software for 3 years and this is after spending about 2 years evaluating every catering software on the market. I can clearly state that Caterease is by far the best one out there and the easiest to use. It’s also incredibly fast. I can generate a contract in literally a fraction of a second. You do have to have a normal internet connection to use the software. Dial up speed is not adequate in this day and age. Also, everyone I have ever spoken to at Caterease have been wonderful to deal with – and I’ve talked to at least 10 different people at the company so far.

Pluspunten:

everyone I have ever spoken to at Caterease have been wonderful to deal with

Caterease is a vital part of our catering operation

Opmerkingen: We love the fact that we have all of our event information under one tool with the ability to generate so many different reports from the kitchen to our front of house teams. The professional display and consistent look and feel of the quotes we produce from Caterease gives us the edge over our competitors and the flexibility of the print design tools means we can customize to our individual customer requirements. The support of the Caterease help desk is also fantastic. When your business is so reliant on a program like this it is vital the back up support is quick and efficient. This is certainly the case with the Caterease support team - they always respond quickly with prudent advice or a solution to meet our requirements.

We are so pleased with Caterease

Opmerkingen: We did a lot of research, more than 10 years ago, to find the best program to suit our needs and 10 years later, we haven't been sorry for a moment. Caterease was easy to set-up way back then and today, continues to be easy to use and navigate. The help desk couldn't be better - they have even take our "wish lists" over the years and incorporated them in program updates. Software life does not get much better than that! We could not be more pleased with options within the program to customize forms and if I just have to have it the way I want to see it, Caterease is willing to create custom forms to make me happy.

This is a very involved program!

Opmerkingen: Way to involved of a program for a small time operation such as mine. I would like to see a small business program that wasn't so much

Pluspunten:

I guess this is considered both a pro and con. It has a plethora of options and functions that you can never remember half of them. I like options, but this maybe too much.

Minpunten:

Small icons. Way too many functions. Pick a majority and do those better. Some stuff only a very small percentage gets used. Way too many windows to open to complete tasks.