Custom management software for caterers: quotes, recipe cost sheets, and routes

Restaurant tills know how to serve a counter. They know nothing of a 180-cover wedding forty kilometres away: quotes costed from recipes, loading lists, and temperature records that must survive transport. That is where the tool is missing.

Finding custom management software for caterers is guesswork: Zelty, L'Addition, and Popina point to forms without prices, while Lightspeed Restaurant publishes €89–€249 monthly (pages consulted September 2, 2026). Sirene lists 34,689 active catering-service businesses on September 2, 2026.

Three publishers without displayed prices

The caterer count needs explaining: 34,689 is the sum of 101 department-by-department Sirene queries because public queries cap at ten thousand results. INSEE does not publish that total as such; it is the register's state on a given date. Food trucks remain uncountable, buried in the fast-food activity code with no official source separating them. Software has the same opacity: three leading French players use contact forms or quotemakers without amounts. SumUp is an exception, with 1.75% per in-person payment without subscription, Paiements Plus at €19 monthly lowering domestic cards to 0.89%, and Caisse Plus at €49 monthly excluding VAT.

What modules cost extra

Lightspeed's base pricing covers payments and licences: Basic at €89 for one till, Core at €159 for two, Pro at €249 for three, then €49 per extra till. Mobile ordering, kitchen screens, reservations, inventory management from the middle tier, and online ordering cost extra; payment rates are not quantified on the page. On its Trustpilot listing, rated 3.9 out of 5 from 2,507 reviews, Julien Monteiro writes August 8, 2026: 'Our subscription went from €1,548 to €2,244 annually, about a 45% increase.' Nathalie Gigot describes a forced mid-service update on June 6, 2026: 'Following an automatic update we can no longer access the system.' At SumUp, rated 4.2 out of 5 from 55,625 reviews, restaurateur Clara M. describes a forced migration after acquisition of her former provider on September 1, 2026.

Five functions for off-site work

The list begins with event quotes costed from recipe sheets: price derives from actual ingredient costs, cover count, and temporary-staff hourly rates instead of a mental estimate. Then comes production planning by event: what is prepared the day before, transported cold, or finished on site, with a printed truck loading list. An allergen register attaches to each recipe and produces a printable client sheet for the event without re-entry. Traceability and temperature logs connect to supplier batches, export for inspections, and prompt missing readings. Finally, staff and route planning specifies who works each event, which truck leaves where and when, and labour costs feeding event margins.

Legal requirements and what cannot be coded

Hygiene is the profession's heaviest constraint because traceability must survive transport. At least one person completes fourteen-hour food hygiene training; animal-origin products require declaration to the departmental population protection authority before opening; the cold chain stays between 0 and 3°C; readings, cleaning plans, and supplier details must be available at surprise inspections. Information on fourteen allergens must be written and accessible without customers asking under EU Regulation 1169/2011. A food truck adds two documents: temporary public-space occupancy authorisation and an itinerant trading card, €30 for four years through a Cerfa form at the relevant chamber, with fines up to €750 if absent. None can be replaced by software, nor can the till: paragraph 375 of tax guidance excludes software developed by a taxable person for their own needs without an accredited body's certificate. Caterers bill many businesses, placing them firmly within electronic invoicing's scope, unlike most counter restaurants. Confirm details with your adviser.

The first three steps, in order

Marcel, dividing work into verifiable steps, does not begin with quotes even if that is your first expectation. Step one is recipe sheets and ingredient costs because quotes cannot exist before them. Enter twenty recipes, see a cost per cover, and you already have something to discuss with clients. Step two is event quotes using those costs, temporary-staff rates, and margin-threshold warnings. Step three is production plans and loading lists derived from signed quotes. Traceability, temperatures, and staff scheduling follow after the first three run on two real events. Each step has tests written before code and passes through Félix before the next begins. Each needs its predecessor to say something accurate; that determines the order rather than methodological preference.

Where to start

Take the quote for your last large event and its ingredient invoice. Place them side by side and calculate the actual margin including temporary staff. If the gap surprises you, you have the reason to build step one first. Then compare the modules you already pay for with a complete budget: assistant plan and AI usage observed in a trial, approval time, hosting, external services and maintenance. Spending in our tests does not set your tool's price; read the five-year calculation before deciding.