Get started with Catertoo

Your account and workspace

When you sign up, Catertoo creates your account and your workspace together, filled with sample clients, events and menus so you can look around. Signing up with an email and password does not sign you in, so there are a few steps before you see the dashboard:

1. On the sign-up page, enter your name, your email and a password (twice), then choose Create account.
2. Catertoo sends you to the Log in page with this message: "Thanks - if your email is registered, you will receive a verification link shortly. Please log in to continue." The message looks the same for every email address, so it does not tell you whether the address already had an account. If it did, you get an email titled "Someone tried to sign up with your email" instead, with a Reset password button.
3. Open the email "Welcome to Catertoo - confirm your email" (it can take a few moments to arrive) and choose Verify your email.
4. Log in with your email and password if Catertoo asks you to. It then confirms your email and opens your admin dashboard.

If you log in before confirming your email, Catertoo asks you to confirm it instead of opening the dashboard. Choose Verify your email in the email to carry on, or choose Resend verification email if the email has not arrived or the link has expired (a link works for 60 minutes).

If you choose Continue with Google instead, there is no email to confirm: you are signed in and land on your admin dashboard straight away.

Set up your business

When you are ready to work with real data, choose Set up your business in the banner at the top. Enter your business name, contact email and phone, your country and your timezone. Catertoo fills in a timezone for you; change it if your business runs in another one. Setting up clears the sample data.

Everyone sees times in your business timezone: you and your team in the admin, your staff in the staff portal, and your clients on proposals, invoices and emails. Staff and clients see the timezone next to each time, for example 6:00 PM PDT. If your computer is set to another timezone, the admin shows a small note such as "Times shown in Pacific Time".

You can change the timezone later in Settings, under Business profile. Each existing time keeps its moment and shows in the new timezone: a 6:00 PM Pacific event reads 9:00 PM after a switch to Eastern. All-day time off and payment dates you enter by hand are the exceptions: they stay on the same dates.

Your currency is set in the same place. Every proposal and invoice keeps the currency it was created in, so Catertoo only lets you change the business currency when nothing is in flight: no invoice that is unpaid (draft, sent, partially paid or overdue), and no open proposal (a draft, a sent proposal, or an accepted one that is not fully invoiced yet). Until then the currency field is greyed out and tells you how many invoices and proposals are in the way. Finish, void or archive them, and the field unlocks.

Under the greyed-out field, View unpaid invoices and View open proposals open the list of exactly the documents that are in the way (you need the See financials permission to follow them).

Find your way around

The left sidebar links the main sections (a bar at the bottom of the screen on phones): Dashboard, Reports, Sales (clients, leads, events, calendar, proposals, invoices, and venues), Kitchen (menu, recipes, ingredients, equipment, and staff), and Settings. The dashboard gives you a quick overview to start from.

Your first steps

1. Build your menu: your dishes and pricing. It's the source every proposal is built from, so start here.
2. Add your clients: the people and organizations you cater for.
3. Send your first proposal: assemble it from your menu and send it for the client's acceptance.

What's next?

• Add your venues so you can reuse locations across your events.
• Build your menu to get your first proposal out the door.