Packages

What Are Packages?

Many caterers price their quotes based on packages rather than individually pricing every item. A common example is a buffet package: the customer pays a set price per guest and can choose from a selection of mains, sides, and desserts. Packages in Puree let you define all of that once and then add it to a quote with just a couple of clicks — automatically populating all the items, staff, equipment, and venue hire you've configured.

A package or a bundle?

A package is priced per guest and describes an event. A Bundles is a single item made of other catalogue items, a platter or a boxed lunch or a bar kit, priced once and ordered by the dozen. If you would order twelve of it, it is a bundle, not a package. The two work together: a package's fixed and flexible items can be bundles, so the platter stays one line to price and pack while the package handles the day around it. The four ways of putting a line on a quote are compared in our article Options, Includes, Bundles and Packages: Which One Do You Mean?.

Before You Start

Before creating a package, you need to have your items set up. Packages pull from your existing Items & Categories, so make sure the food, beverages, equipment, and any other items you want to include in the package have already been created. You'll also want your Event Staff roles configured if you plan to include staffing in the package.

Creating a Package

Navigate to Items → Packages and click New Package. Give the package a name (e.g. "Wedding Buffet" or "Corporate Lunch"), set the price per guest, and specify the minimum number of guests. You can also add an optional description that will appear in the quote.

Fixed Items

Fixed items are items where the customer doesn't get a choice — they're simply included in the package. For each fixed item, you set a quantity type: either per guest or fixed. Per-guest items scale with the number of guests on the quote (e.g. 1 bread roll per guest means 100 rolls for 100 guests). Fixed-quantity items stay the same regardless of guest count (e.g. 2 water jugs no matter how many guests).

You can also assign a menu header to each item and set the delivery temperature if the item requires one. The quantity per guest can be a decimal — for example, 1.5 champagne flutes per guest.

Give a Fixed items card an optional Rule header — for example "Grazing Selection" — to gather its items under one heading on the quote and online menu, above any menu headers. It's handy when the card's items span several categories. Leave it blank to group the items under their own categories instead. See grouping & order for how rule-header blocks sort and drag.

The item picker footer has a Hide items from quote toggle. Items you hide are still part of the package — and still appear on your internal dockets and run sheets — but are kept off the customer's quote, your online menus, and the online order form. It's ideal for behind-the-scenes inclusions like crockery, napkins, or serving equipment that you don't want the customer to see listed.

Flexible Items (Customer Choice)

Flexible items let the customer choose from a category. For example, "select 3 items from Canapés" or "choose 2 mains from the Buffet category". You define the category, how many selections the customer can make, and which items from that category are available to choose from.

Flexible items have two display modes on the quote:

• Show items — Lists all available items so the customer can see the full selection
• Placeholder — Shows "selections pending" until the customer has made their choices

Once the customer has chosen, you edit the quote, go to the items page, and swap the placeholder items for the actual selections. The quantities, menu headers, and delivery times all carry across.

Staff

Packages can include staff roles that scale with guest numbers. You define how many of each role are needed per 100 guests, along with the number of hours they'll work. Puree automatically calculates the right number of staff when you set the guest count on the quote. For example, if you set 2 chefs per 100 guests and the quote is for 150 guests, Puree will round up to 3 chefs.

Equipment and Venue Hire

You can also include equipment items and venue hire in a package. Equipment follows the same per-guest or fixed-quantity logic as food items. Venue hire items are included at a set quantity per package.

Adding a Package to a Quote

When creating or editing a quote, go to the items page (step 2). You'll see a Packages tab alongside the master category tabs (Menu, Beverages, Staff, Equipment, etc.). Click it to see your list of packages.

Select a package and a summary of everything it includes will appear. Enter the number of guests and all quantities will update automatically. You can also adjust the package name and price per guest if needed for this specific quote. Click Add to Order and all the items, staff, equipment, and venue hire will be populated across the relevant categories.

You can add multiple packages to a single quote. For example, you might have one package for the buffet, another for beverages, and a third for equipment — keeping things modular and easy to manage.

How Packages Appear on Quotes

The quote shows a Packages section with the package name, guest count, and total price. Below that, the individual items appear under their respective menu headers and categories, just as they would if you'd added them manually. The package holds the price — individual items within the package show a price of zero since the cost is covered by the per-guest package price.

P.O.A packages: if a package is built entirely from fixed Price on Application items (with no flexible choices), its per-guest price is ignored and it's left off the Packages section of the quote altogether — its items still appear (each marked "P.O.A") under their categories. We recommend giving these items their own menu header (e.g. "Optional Extras") so they read as a distinct section on the quote. See Price on Application (P.O.A) for how to set this up.

Editing Items After Adding a Package

Once a package has been added to a quote, you can still edit the individual items. Change delivery times, update chef notes, swap out flexible selections, or adjust menu headers — the items behave just like any other items on the quote. This gives you the speed of packages with the flexibility to fine-tune each event.

Xero Allocation

If your account is connected to Xero or QuickBooks, the package edit screen has an allocation button next to the price, labelled Xero allocation, QuickBooks allocation or Accounting allocation depending on what you're connected to. Because a package is priced per guest as a single thing, its price reaches your accounting system as one line coded to Miscellaneous. This lets you say what percentage of the package price belongs to Menu, Beverages, Staff and Equipment instead, and the invoice is split across those revenue accounts. Puree shows the dollar figure per guest next to each percentage as you type.

Every package starts at 100% Miscellaneous, so nothing changes until you choose to split one. Miscellaneous balances itself: whatever you assign elsewhere comes off it automatically, which is why you never type into it. It only affects accounting, and nothing about the quote, the customer view or the dockets changes.

One thing to know before you change a package that's been in use: the split is read fresh every time a quote syncs, so re-splitting a package also re-codes the revenue on older quotes that use it, the next time one of them syncs. Invoices already paid or voided can't be changed, so reconciled work is safe. To change the split for new work only, duplicate the package and re-split the copy.

Tips

• Spend time setting up your packages correctly — it pays off every time you create a new quote
• You can create large all-inclusive packages or break them into smaller, modular ones (e.g. separate packages for food, beverages, and equipment)
• Use flexible items when you want to give customers a choice, and fixed items when the selection is predetermined
• Remember that staff quantities scale per 100 guests, so test with different guest counts to make sure the numbers look right
• Packages can be marked as inactive if they're no longer needed — they won't appear in the package list when creating quotes