If you’re in charge of overseeing events in your venue, Caterease’s event planning and catering software may be on your radar. Here, we have put together a comprehensive Caterease review to help make sense of the platform. This should help you when deciding which event management software to use.
Caterease is a software solution designed for venues such as caterers, hotels, banquet halls, and country clubs. It can support business operations, reduce mistakes, and save time for event teams. Â
However, Caterease isn’t necessarily the best solution for every business that hosts events (see: best event management software). True to its name, the platform leans toward catering companies. It’s also not the most affordable on the market, and can oftentimes be clunky and unintuitive in its user experience. Â
So, is the software worth it? Read along as we break down the platform's functions, how much it costs, and cover some of its main pros and cons.
Caterease Review
What is Caterease?
Caterease is an all-in-one event and catering software solution. This platform provides a single place where businesses can stay on top of their operations and automate tasks to help save time.
The platform is known for features such as event booking forms with required fields, automatic reminders and checklists, venue lists, packing slips, and drag and drop menu selection. The overall goal of the Caterease software is to help a busy catering company or event venue streamline event-related tasks and get more clients.
It’s important to note that Caterease is one of the longer-standing names in the industry, and this is reflected in the archaic user experience. It’s more closely tailored toward catering operations, which was its original core clientele.
Main Features
Caterease offers various tools for event planners and caterers to manage the event timeline. This includes tools to manage leads and accept bookings, as well as to plan, manage, and report on events.
Here is a breakdown of some of the features the app offers:
Form Driven Event Booking
Automated forms ensure that event details are consistent and entered as they should be. This helps to reduce instances of incomplete data, which can result in back and forth to clarify or collect information. Although helpful, these forms are often difficult to customize and don’t fit the needs of all users.
Automatic Reminders and Checklists
Use automated reminders and inventory tracking functions to keep on top of events ahead of time. Caterease also offers automatic detailed packing lists to make preparation smoother when the event date arrives.
Automatic Scalable Recipes and Sub-Recipes
Build scalable recipes and calculate more accurate costings for events of all sizes. This helps prevent costly mistakes due to over or under-ordering, which saves valuable time and money.
Venue Selection With Conflict Checking
This feature helps event organizers choose the right venues for events and prevent double bookings.
Custom Event Documents
The platform has a selection of designed templates and layouts to produce front-of-house or back-of-house documents. Teams can create the documents or menus they want, customize them, and access wireless printing.
Customer Management Tools
The platform offers a selection of tools to help manage customers and provide a better customer experience. This includes tools to review the client history, record client correspondence, schedule reminders, and develop leads. Â
Custom Business Metrics
This software provides access to a reporting module, including reports on revenue forecasts, client activity, event details, tools to track payments, etc. You can sort and filter these results based on specific details.
Web Inquiry Tool
Using Caterease, you can publish data entry forms on your website that act as contact forms. Through these, you can capture leads and reduce time spent on admin tasks related to inquiries.
Calendar
A calendar feature is available to help you stay on top of all upcoming events through a single calendar. This helps with event staff scheduling, automating event reminders, and more.
What Integrations are Available for Caterease?
Caterease offers a variety of integrations with other software providers and solutions. Here is a breakdown of the integrations available if you use this platform as your in-house system:
- Sage
- Food Trak
- ChefTec
- Yellow Dog
- Cost Guard
- Reciprofity
- Constant Contact
- Placez
- All Seated
- Social Tables
- Client Point
- Zuppler
- DocuSign
- HPay
- Staffmate
- Nowsta
On top of these interfaces, Caterease also provides additional tools and add-ons to enhance the platform's existing functionality. This includes solutions for:
- Banquet room management
- Guestrooms manager
- Prospect manager
- Document builder
- Web inquiries
- Quick-order manager
Note that you may be charged an additional fee should you choose to use the add-ons as many features are not included in the base fee.
How Much Does Caterease Cost?
Caterease offers three different pricing plans, each one paid monthly. Plans offered include Express, Standard, and Professional. They start from $68/month and reach $132/month.
The platform charges a standard one-time setup fee of $200, as well as an extra $28 monthly fee for additional users beyond the specific number allocated to your plan. It’s not uncommon for Caterease users to feel nickel-and-dimed as they charge extra for many features customers would consider standard such as a document builder and lead tracking tool.
The different pricing structures include various limits and feature additions to support different-sized catering and event businesses. As mentioned above, there are also additional add-ons available. The cost of these depends on the specific requirements of your business. Â
Caterease Pros
- Lets you create many different documents
- Video tutorials to help users understand the software
- Offers a range of tools to cover basic functionality as well as complex catering needs
- Flexible, yet expensive, pricing options for businesses of all sizes
Caterease Cons
- User experience is not as intuitive as some of the newer software options
- Can end up costly after selecting add-ons and loading extra users onto the platform
- Forced password reset every two weeks
- Does not save your work automatically
- Reporting feature could be improved
- The inventory tracking tool is not as powerful as other competing options
- Auto-generated proposals are clunky and difficult to edit
Conclusion
For a catering business, Caterease is a solid option to boost productivity and simplify your busy workday. It offers a dashboard where you can handle your event management tasks, including taking and managing bookings, building recipes, printing menus, and tracking business metrics, among other functions.
A unique venue looking for a user-friendly and intuitive interface to manage events may find Caterease to be costly and complex. In this case, we recommend you check out Perfect Venue.
Our platform comes with all the great features you would expect from event management software. It’s affordable and intuitive, leaving you free to begin using it in a matter of minutes. Get your free trial today.
