Prep Station

For full-service caterers

Staff the event from the order BEOs, timelines, and punches that match

Prep Station turns a confirmed event into run-of-show, on-site staffing, kitchen and FOH BEOs, production, and time clocks—so people on the floor work from the same order as the kitchen.

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No credit card required · Walk a staffed event · Cancel anytime

Mostly corporate drop-offs and online reorders? See drop-off caterers.

Full-service catering team plating for an on-site event

Why Prep Station for full-service caterers

01

Event plan on the order

Run-of-show timelines and staffing rosters live on the sales order—not a side spreadsheet.

02

BEOs that match the floor

Kitchen and FOH Banquet Event Orders print from the same confirmed event your team staffed.

03

People on the clock

Time clocks and attendance track the crew you assigned—so labor isn’t a month-end surprise.

No credit card for the live demo

Quote to BEO to punch

Cancel anytime

Staffed events break when the BEO doesn’t match the floor. Timeline in one sheet. Roster in another. Punches nowhere near the order.

Sales wins the job. Kitchen rebuilds the menu. FOH rebuilds the run-of-show. Captains guess headcount. Time clocks don’t know who was on the event.

Full-service reality

You need people on the clock and a BEO everyone trusts—not software built only for lunch drop vans.

One order powers the staffed event

Follow a banquet from inquiry to punches. Click a stage to see what Prep Station runs from that same record.

Sell

Capture the inquiry in CRM, build a quote on a sales order, send it, and convert it when the client books—without starting over.

  • CRM pipeline from inquiry to won
  • Quotes with guest counts and event details
  • Deposits and portal review

Sales order #1042

Riverside Holdings · Sat Jul 18

Quote

Guests

86

Service

12:30

Est. margin

~62%

Menu lines

  • Herb chicken lunch ×86
  • Grain salad 22 qt
  • Chocolate tart ×86
Plate cost $11.42
Facsimile of a catering sales order — guests, menu, and margin on one record.

Ready to walk a staffed event from quote to BEO to punch?

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CRM pipeline

Inquiries → quotes → won

Board

New Inquiry

Harbor Law firm lunch

42 guests · Aug 2

$1.8k

Quote Sent

Riverside Holdings

86 guests · Jul 18

$3.4k

Westside Gallery

28 guests · Jul 22

$1.1k

Won

Northside HQ weekly

60 guests · recurring

$2.2k

Facsimile of the CRM board — New Inquiry, Quote Sent, Won.

Quotes & CRM

Build the quote once. Run the entire event from it.

Inquiries land in the pipeline. Quotes are sales orders—with guest counts, service times, menus, and deposits—so winning the business does not mean retyping it for the kitchen.

  • CRM stages from New Inquiry through Quote Sent to Won
  • Multi-day and multi-slot catering on a single order
  • Quote documents and customer portal for review and reorder
Catering kitchen preparing for a production day

Production & BEO

Turn tomorrow’s events into today’s kitchen plan

Production Hub consolidates confirmed banquet demand. Prep sheets show batch quantities. Banquet Event Orders cover kitchen and front-of-house, with the staffing roster printed from the same order.

  • Aggregated prep across every event on the day
  • BEO documents for kitchen and FOH
  • Event staffing assignments on the sales order

Purchasing & margin

Buy what the order requires

Competitors often stop at a shopping list. Prep Station ties vendor prices and yields into recipe cost, then turns confirmed events into purchasing demand and purchase orders so you protect the margin you sold.

  • Yield-aware recipe costing through modifiers and prep recipes
  • Vendors, invoice capture, and inventory receiving
  • Waste logging so actual food cost stays honest

Purchasing horizon

Demand from confirmed events · 7 days

Buy

Ingredients

18

Events

6

Est. spend

$2.4k

Ingredient Need Vendor
Airline chicken 48 lb Sysco
Farro 12 lb Local Grain
Heavy cream 6 qt Dairy Direct
Facsimile of purchasing demand from confirmed catering orders.

Cost the plate, buy for the event, protect the margin you sold.

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Event plan & workforce

Timeline, roster, BEO, and punches on one event

Drop-off teams live in vans and storefronts. Full-service teams live in run-of-show, captains on the floor, and people punching a clock.

Event plan · Sat Jul 18

Riverside Holdings · 86 guests

Timeline

  1. Load-in

    Setup crew × 3

    9:00 AM

  2. Kitchen arrive

    Chef + 2 cooks

    10:30 AM

  3. Guest doors

    Captain + servers × 6

    12:00 PM

  4. Service

    Full FOH roster

    12:30 PM

  5. Breakdown

    Setup + dishwash

    2:30 PM
Facsimile — run-of-show timeline on the sales order Event tab.

Staff roster

Assigned to this event · punches feed attendance

Clock

  • Maya Chen

    Captain · 11:00–3:00

    On clock

  • Luis Ortega

    Server · 11:30–3:00

    On clock

  • Priya Shah

    Server · 11:30–3:00

    Break

  • Jon Park

    Chef · 9:00–4:00

    On clock
Facsimile — event staffing roster with time-clock status.
  • Kitchen & FOH BEOs — print from the confirmed order, not a rebuilt PDF.
  • On-site staffing — captains, servers, chefs, setup with shift windows.
  • Time clocks — punches and attendance against the people you assigned.

Running high-volume lunch drops instead? Software for drop-off caterers.

Stop retyping the same event for every team

Same banquet. Four rebuilds on the left. One sales order on the right.

The old way

4 rebuilds

Riverside banquet gets copied into a new sheet for each desk.

  1. Sales

    Quote PDF

    86 guests · Plated lunch

    v1

  2. Kitchen

    Prep spreadsheet

    Herb chicken × 86 retyped

    v2

  3. FOH

    Run-of-show Word doc

    Load-in 9:00 retyped

    v3

  4. Payroll

    Who worked?

    Captains & servers guessed

    v4

With Prep Station

0 rebuilds

Confirm once. Kitchen, FOH, and payroll read the same event.

Sales order

#1042 · Riverside Holdings

86 guests · Sat 12:30 PM · Staffed banquet

Confirmed

  • Sales

    Quote, deposit, portal

    Reads #1042

  • Kitchen

    Prep + kitchen BEO

    Reads #1042

  • FOH

    Timeline + FOH BEO

    Reads #1042

  • Payroll

    Punches on roster

    Reads #1042

Win the event once. Kitchen, FOH, and payroll stop rebuilding it.

Or watch a recorded walkthrough

Operator story

Built because we needed it ourselves

Prep Station started inside a working catering company—where disconnected sheets between sales, kitchen, purchasing, and delivery were the daily tax on every event. The product exists to replace that tax with one order-driven operating system.

Questions catering teams ask

Straight answers before you spin up the demo.

Can Prep Station replace our quote spreadsheet and kitchen sheets?

Yes. The sales order is the source of truth—quotes, event timeline, staffing, BEOs, and production all read the same record, so teams stop rebuilding the banquet in separate sheets.

Do I need a credit card for the live demo?

No. The live demo does not require a credit card. Explore the catering workflow and cancel anytime.

Does it handle multi-day events and multiple service slots?

Yes. Multi-day and multi-slot catering live on a single sales order, so guest counts, menus, timelines, and staffing stay attached to one event.

Can we print kitchen and FOH Banquet Event Orders?

Yes. BEO variants for kitchen and front-of-house print from the confirmed sales order, including the staffing roster you assigned.

Does event staffing connect to time clocks?

Yes. Assign captains, servers, chefs, and setup on the Event tab. People punch in on the time clock kiosk, and attendance reporting tracks labor against real events.

How is this different from catering CRM or event software?

Most tools book the order, then your team rebuilds the BEO, roster, and kitchen sheets. Prep Station runs the staffed event from the same confirmed order—plan, produce, staff, and punch without re-entry.

What if we mostly do drop-offs, not staffed events?

Use the drop-off caterers path. It focuses on branded online ordering, multi-slot delivery, packing per stop, and Delivery Hub—without centering BEOs and on-site staffing. Software for drop-off caterers.

Prep Station

Run the staffed event from one order

Spin up the live demo and walk quote → event plan → BEO → time clock.

Try Live Demo
See pricing

No credit card required · Cancel anytime