Customer Menu Choices

Your customers can choose from two things: packages that offer a choice, or items you’ve made an optional extra. They can do it when they accept your quote, or come back and finish later. You choose which package choices stay yours; they tick their dishes, add any optional extras, and can change their own picks until your cutoff. Their picks go straight into the quote, and they can’t change anything else on it.

How It Works

1. You build a package with flexi choices, such as “Choose 2 mains” or “Choose 1 dessert”. They’re left to the customer unless you set a choice to No.
2. You add the package to a quote and send it, leaving those choices open. You can add Optional Extras too.
3. When the customer clicks Accept Quote, the accept window shows Your selections: the dishes on offer under each heading, and your optional extras. They tick what they want, or choose later, then type their name and accept.
4. Their picks are saved into the quote and it’s accepted as usual. You and the customer both get the acceptance email, with a summary of what’s selected and what’s still to choose.
5. Until your cutoff, the accepted quote shows Choose your menu, so they can finish their choices or change their own picks, unless you’ve turned off Allow customers to make changes after acceptance. Each save emails you both.

The customer can also ask you about anything else with Request changes, which emails your team. Nothing on the quote changes until you change it.

Turn It On

Go to Settings → Account Details and find the Customer menu choices panel.

• Customers make menu choices must be on. While it’s off, the accept window and the quote look exactly as before, and there’s no Choose your menu or Request changes button.
• Hide Request changes and Choose your menu [N] days before the event sets when both buttons go. It starts at 7, and you can’t turn the setting on without a number. Use 0 to close at the start of the event day. It’s counted in your time zone from the first delivery’s date.
• Allow customers to make changes after acceptance sits under the main switch and is on by default. Turn it off and accepted quotes don’t show Choose your menu, so customers choose only when they accept, and you finish any choices still open. A quote already accepted loses the button too: its customer’s picks stay, and turning this back on brings the button back. Request changes and your cutoff work the same either way.

Read this before you turn it on. The panel warns you, because the first switch-on reaches your existing quotes as well as new ones:

Before you turn this on: every open package choice on your existing quotes opens to customers straight away, including quotes already accepted, unless you’ve set that choice to No. Accepted quotes get a Choose your menu button, and a customer’s picks can raise the total. This happens once and can’t be undone: turning this off hides the choices, and turning it back on reopens them on the same quotes.

An accepted quote that has already reached your cutoff doesn’t get the button. So before you turn it on, set No on any choice you want to keep, and check the dishes and options on the rest.

Choose Which Choices the Customer Makes

In Items → Packages, open the package. Each Flexi choice items card has a setting at the bottom:

Customer can choose: Yes / No

• Yes (the default, on new and existing cards): the customer picks these dishes.
• No: you pick them, as before.

Nothing reaches a customer until you turn on Customers make menu choices. A package can mix both: you might pick the canapés and leave the mains and dessert to the customer. The number of selections on the card is how many dishes they choose, and the dishes listed on the card are the ones on offer.

Each quote keeps what it was offered. The dishes and options a quote offers are fixed when the package is added to it, or when you first turn the setting on. Changing the package later, including its Yes or No, only affects quotes you add it to afterwards. If you make a dish inactive, quotes that already offer it still do.

The online order form isn’t affected by this setting.

What the Customer Sees When Accepting

When the customer clicks Accept Quote, the window shows Your selections above their name, laid out like the quote: each package, then each choice under its heading.

• Choose my menu now or later. Two cards at the top: Choose my menu now (the default) and I’ll choose later (“You can come back to this link to choose”, or with changes after acceptance off, “Please contact [your business] to finish your choices.”). Choosing later hides the dishes, and the quote is accepted with its choices still open.
• Dishes under each heading, with a counter: “0 of 2 chosen”. Once they reach the number, the other dishes are greyed out. Dishes you’ve already chosen on the quote show as Already chosen and can’t be changed.

• Options. If a dish has options (such as a sauce or a gluten-free version), they appear under it once it’s ticked, with your defaults already picked. A priced option shows its charge, such as “Gluten-free (+$1.50)”. Any option you’ve made compulsory must be answered.
• Optional extras. Each of the quote’s optional extras is listed with its quantity and price, under your extras section’s name. Ticking one adds it to the order.
• P.O.A extras can’t be added here. Instead each has an I’d like more info box, which goes in the email so you can follow up.
• What their selections add. A line above their name says what the picks add, and only that, such as “Your selections add $402.50 including GST.” It may also say “after your discount” or “after the surcharge”. Picks that add nothing show no line. It gives no new total or balance: those are on the quote.

When accepting, the customer must choose at least the card’s minimum for any heading they start, and can leave a heading alone. On a quote with several deliveries, each delivery’s choices are listed separately.

If you change the quote while the customer has the window open, they’re asked to check it and accept again, so they never accept something different from what they saw.

Choose Your Menu, After Accepting

A customer who accepted without finishing can come back to their link. Choose your menu shows beside Request changes, on the standard quote and every quote template, until your cutoff, as long as there’s something to pick or one of their own picks to change. It goes after the event, when the order reaches the post-event stage, or when you turn the setting off. P.O.A extras alone don’t show it: customers ask about those with Request changes.

• It’s the same list of dishes, options and extras, in your quote’s style. They can pick one of three now and choose the rest later: the minimum doesn’t apply here.
• The same line says what their selections add. When a change raises the total, it adds: “Priced selections are added to your total and balance. Nothing is charged now.”
• They type their name each time they save, in Your full name above the Save my selections button. It starts empty every time, and the save is refused without it. This is a record of who made the change, not a signature: the signed acceptance and its PDF don’t change.
• After saving, they see that you have their selections and, if anything is priced, “Nothing has been charged.” If something is still open: “You can come back to this link to choose the rest.” The message gives no total or balance.

Customers Changing Their Own Picks

Until your cutoff, a customer’s own picks show as ticked boxes in both windows, with their options. They can untick a dish or extra, or swap it for another. Unticking puts the line back as it was, ready to choose again. Any note or presentation style you’ve set on the line stays.

What locks a pick. The line becomes yours, and the customer can’t change it, when:

• you change its dish, quantity or price, in the quote builder or through the API
• the kitchen marks it done on the kitchen dashboard, or marks done any part of a bundle
• you duplicate the quote: the copy’s lines are all yours

A note on the line, a change of guest numbers, a new version of the quote or a save of another line doesn’t lock it. If guests have changed, an unticked line’s quantity follows the new number. A pick made before customers could change their picks is treated as yours.

A change can lower the total. The line then says what it takes off, such as “Your selections take $23.00 off including GST.” Nothing is refunded automatically, and a deposit already paid stays paid. If the total falls below what you’ve received, your team’s email says “This order is now overpaid by $X. Arrange a credit or refund.”

The Emails

The acceptance email, to you and the customer, gains a section on their picks: each package, its dishes under each heading (with options on a smaller line), Optional extras added with their prices, More information requested for any P.O.A extras ticked. It’s sent under your existing Quote accepted email setting.

The Menu selections email goes out each time they save in Choose your menu, as one copy to your team and a separate one to the customer. Both are on by default, under a new Menu selections email setting. It shows each priced option’s charge, and gives no total or balance: those are on the quote.

In both emails:

• With everything chosen, the section is headed Your selections (Their selections on a copy only your team gets).
• With something left, it’s headed Selected so far, followed by Still to choose: for example “Sandwiches & Wraps: 2 more” or “Salads: 2”.
• The customer’s copy then says “You can come back to your order to choose the rest, until Thursday, 29 October 2026”, linked to their quote, with the last day worked out from your cutoff. Once that has passed, or with changes after acceptance off: “Please contact [your business] to finish these.”
• Removed lists anything they took off.
• The customer’s copy says “Prices shown before GST.” when their selections add tax on top.

Your team’s copy of the Menu selections email also shows Selections saved by and the name they typed, and tells you what to follow up:

• that the order is overpaid
• that the quote had nothing left to pay and needs a payment request for the balance
• that an invoice in Xero or QuickBooks needs checking against the new total
• that a removed dish came from a supplier: “Removed: X from [supplier]. Tell them if you’ve already ordered.”

Payments

Picks that change the total change the balance. Nothing is charged when they pick. Open card payment links update to the new amount and keep their links, and payment requests not sent yet use the new total when they go. A deposit already paid by card stays paid, with no top-up.

Request Changes

Once a quote is accepted, the customer’s quote shows a Request changes button, on the standard quote and every quote template.

The customer writes a note (required). Under I’d like to ask about, they can tick any item on the quote that’s priced on application. That’s every P.O.A line they can see on the quote: an optional extra, a package line, a line on its own, or a dish they chose. Nothing else on the quote is listed. With no P.O.A items, the heading and list don’t show, and the note and everything else stay.

Send emails your team with the note, the ticked lines and a link to the order. Nothing on the quote changes: you reply and make any changes yourself, as you would for an email or a call. The email goes out under the Change request email setting: your team gets it, and the customer copy is off by default.

Cutoff. The button disappears from midnight N days before the event, along with Choose your menu. For example, with 2 and a Friday event, Tuesday is the last day it shows; with 7, it’s the Thursday of the week before; with 0 it goes at the start of the event day. After that, customers see “Changes can no longer be requested online. Please contact” you, with your phone or email.

In the Order’s Audit Trail

On the order page, Show audit trail lists the customer’s choices in plain terms, under the headings Selected (package, heading and dishes), Optional extras (quantity, name and price), Removed, Still to choose, More info and Saved by (the name typed in Choose your menu). If they chose later and picked nothing, the entry reads Customer chose to make their menu choices later. A Request changes message is logged there too, with the note and ticked lines.

Good to Know

• Your own dishes, notes and quantities on the quote aren’t touched: the customer only fills the choices left open to them, changes their own picks, and adds the extras you offered.
• Turning the setting off hides the choices and both buttons, and keeps any picks already saved. Turning it back on reopens the same quotes.
• A quote that only has optional extras (no customer choices) shows just the extras, with no now-or-later cards.
• The quote’s quantities follow the package: a dish the customer picks gets the quantity the package gives it, just as if you’d picked it.
• Customers can only choose from what the quote offers: they can’t add other dishes or options.
• An option they’ve already picked keeps the price it was saved at, even if your catalogue price changes. An option they haven’t picked shows today’s price.

Tips

• Name your choice headings clearly (for example “Mains to Share” or “Dessert”), since the customer sees them in the accept window. Use the card’s Overall heading.
• Turn on Show items for customer choices so the quote lists the dishes on offer before they accept.
• Offer upgrades as Optional Extras so customers can add them while they accept.

See also Packages and Optional Extras.