No other software program updates as aggressively as Caterease - and, best of all, these updates are automatic and absolutely free of charge with an active maintenance plan!
Every new Caterease build introduces dozens of new features, and major new releases offer hundreds of program enhancements. Below are just a few examples of some powerful features added to recent releases – and this is only in the past twelve months! Visit this page often and learn what's new with the event management industry's most powerful and most progressive software application.
February 26, 2008 - Build 684
Email Signatures
The Caterease email tools have always been the most robust, powerful email tools in the industry. And they just keep getting better! Introducing Caterease Email Signatures – a fast easy way to imbed your own custom signatures to the bottom of any Caterease email messages. Include any rich text fonts and even digital images to make your emails really stand out!
Email Enhancements
Another handy improvement to the program’s email tools is the intuitive defaulting of the recipient’s email address. Now, when you generate an email from an event in Event Manager, the email address of the booking contact will default on the outgoing email. If you are in Account Manager when you generate your email, it will default the address of whichever contact person is currently highlighted in that customer’s list of contacts.
Merge Letter Email Attachments
In addition to letting you instantly use a custom merge letter as the body of an outgoing email (a HUGE advantage – click here to see a video), you can now simply include any merge letter as an email attachment in .pdf or .rtf format. You can even do both – imbed one merge letter as the body of the outgoing email and attach another instantly! So much power available at your fingertips!
January 21, 2008 - Build 682
Client Contacts Batch Email
The popular Caterease Client Contacts Query now has a powerful new feature: Batch Emailing! Now you can not only collect a custom list of specific contact people from each of your clients, but you can also send them all a custom email letter – complete with attachments – with a single mouse click!
Enhanced Event Discount Calculations
We’ve improved the way we calculate whole dollar amount discounts on an event, to account for any appropriate taxes and service charges. While Caterease has always offered the ability to add a whole dollar amount discount as a menu line item with its appropriate tax and service charge rates, we now have the same capability in the Apply Event Discounts tool. With Caterease, there are always multiple ways to accomplish whatever you need to accomplish!
New Query Fields
While our Caterease query tools are the most powerful tools in the industry, we are constantly enhancing their capabilities based on user requests. Recently, the fields “Quantity”, “Cost” and “Total” have been added to the results grid of the Ingredients Activity Query. Furthermore, the field “Party Name” has been added as a query condition field in the Event Query tool. At Caterease Software, we pride ourselves in being the most responsive to the needs of our customers!
December 17, 2007 - Build 679
Site Location Default Tax Schedules
If you cater to off-premise locations, perhaps you have certain locations that – due to their locations or other factors – require specific tax and/or service charge rates. You probably already know that Caterease gives you the ability to create multiple tax/service charge schedules as needed. Well, now you can attach one of those schedules to a particular site location – meaning if you retrieve that location into an event, its tax and service charge schedules come in along with it!
Customizable Email Settings
Through the Setup menu of Caterease, you can establish specific email settings for each Caterease computer on your network. First, you can select the setting of Extended MAPI, where emails are fully formatted (including images) and sent through your Outlook Outbox (and stored in your Sent folder). Also, you can choose Simple MAPI, which does not support formatted text or images. Finally, you can select Direct Emailing, where Caterease emails are sent directly through your SMTP server. This approach does support formatted text and images, but does not use your Outlook or other email program and thus retains no copies of the emails. The return address on emails sent through any of these three settings will be your email address, and any return correspondence will be sent to you.
Express Version Enhancements
The Caterease Express Version – the most powerful inexpensive catering software available – now boasts some new features. First and foremost, the powerful Caterease email capability is now available in the Express version of the program. Beyond that, this inexpensive program now offers Spell Check and Thesaurus function, as well as the incredibly popular Caterease Scratch Pad tool. Automation has never been any easier or less expensive than this!
November 28, 2007 - Build 677
Menu Pictures in Prints
As we used to say in New England, this one’s “wicked cool!” Now you can opt to have images of your menu items appear on your favorite contract (or other event print). Enhance your company’s image by providing customers with colorful, graphic depictions of your meal presentations. And still deliver your custom prints with a single click of the mouse!
Ingredients Activity Query
That same amazing functionality that is available in your other Professional Version activity queries – Food/Service Activity Query, Staffing Activity Query, Payments Activity Query, etc. – can be used to track all ingredient items as well. Now just a couple of mouse clicks gives you all the ingredients you need for any day or date range – all displayed in a detail grid. And you know what a Caterease detail grid means. You can sort the data, group the data, filter the data, print the data export the data – basically get the answer to any ingredient question you could possible have in an instant!
Import Tool Enhancements
The popular Import Tool in Prospect Manager now has the ability to optionally restrict importing of any client data without ALL address fields filled in. Rid your system of junk data at the point of origin, before it’s even imported into the program!
October 30, 2007 - Build 675
Commission Splitting
This robust tool lets you split commissions for an event between multiple sales representatives. That way, if two or three sales reps cooperate to handle an event, you can easily and instantly calculate compensation for each of them.
Contact Person Address Information Importing
You may be familiar with the popular Import Tool in Prospect Manager that lets you import client information into your Caterease program. Now this tool has been enhanced to allow you to import unique address and phone/fax information for each contact person associated with each company in your import file.
New Guestrooms Manager Defaults
You’ve probably taken advantage of the powerful Caterease “New Booking Defaults”, where you can tell the program to default the Party Name, contact people or notes of an event to those of the particular customer. Well, now those same optional defaults are available in Guestrooms Manager too, for every new group booking you create!
Guestrooms Manager Access
Now you can prohibit access to Guestrooms Manager for individual Caterease users on your network. If you have specific representatives who never book group rooms, you can use this security feature to lock them out of that area of the program.
October 10, 2007 - Build 669
Linked Menu Item Security Setting
With all the power and flexibility Caterease gives you, it’s nice to know you have the ultimate control. For example, you already know that Caterease lets you or your sales reps modify menu items on the fly within an event – changing their names, descriptions, pricing, etc. Well, this handy security feature lets you prohibit individual users from doing that. They will have to accept an item the way it comes in when retrieved from your program’s menus.
Smart Date Selection
The Prospect Manager offers a handy new tool to help you select dates for your next actions with prospective clients. This tool works similarly to our existing drop-down calendar to help you enter a date, with one huge enhancement – it indicates the number of calls or contacts already scheduled for each day. For example, you might plan to call a prospect next Wednesday, but when you click this tool to select the date you learn that you already have a multitude of calls on that date! Plan your time proactively with this handy feature!
Credit Card Access Security
In an effort to maintain PCI compliance, you can prohibit individual users from accessing credit card number information for a client and/or event.
Guestrooms Contract Deposits Due Schedule
For those who own Guestrooms Manager, you can now elect to include the Deposits Due Schedule for all group rooms bookings on the printed contract you generate for the customer.
September 27, 2007 - Build 667
Track Previously Sent Emails and Letters
Now you can save and view copies of all letters and emails you send - including any email attachments! One mouse click from the preview window dynamically saves all pertinent details as a contact history note available for review in your Contact Manager. Never have you had so much power to manage your history with a client!
Direct Emailing from Guestrooms Manager
Now the amazing direct email function is even available in Guestrooms Manager – including the ability to attach Guestrooms prints!
Import Tool Improvements
As if this Prospect Manager tool wasn't cool enough! Not only does this exceptional tool let you quickly and easily import all client information into the program - and not only does it walk you through the whole process in an incredibly intuitive wizard-type format - but now, when you are previewing the data you want to import, you can actually DRAG AND DROP contact people from one customer to another prior to pulling the data into Caterease! Once again, Caterease is redefining flexibility!
Grid Print Emailing and Exporting
Caterease grids have always been extraordinarily flexible - allowing you to complete customize details and then print that custom information. Now, you can instantly email or export a grid print - just like other prints throughout the program.
Grid Export to .pdf
You already know how easy it is to export grid data - simply click your right mouse button and pick a format! Well, now those optional formats include exporting a custom grid as a .pdf file!
September 4, 2007 - Build 665
Event Change Notifications ("Pings")
This exciting new feature automatically notifies any or all Caterease users the moment (well, OK - 5 seconds after the moment!) an event is edited, added, deleted, cancelled, etc. Basically, it goes like this: you're minding your own business, working in Caterease, and your colleagues is doing the same. He (or she) changes an event, or adds a new one, etc. If you leave the program inactive for 5 seconds (let's face it - isn't it annoying to be typing something and suddenly get a pop-up message?), a pop-up will appear informing you of the change. Of course, you can determine what specific changes will prompt a pop-up "ping" on your machine, and even whether you want to be "pinged" at all! The feature is handy and very well thought out – classic Caterease!
Default Event Notes (from Account)
In your program's New Booking Defaults, you can determine whether you want any notes you have entered for a particular customer in Account Manager to default as the Event Notes of any new event you create for that client.
Default Directions (from Account)
Also through your New Booking Defaults, you can determine if the text you have entered in the Directions tab of your Account Manager should default as the site location directions for each new event for that customer.
Updated Room Diagramming Interface
The interface with Room Viewer room diagramming software has been completely updated to allow you to jump back and forth from your diagram in Room Viewer to your event in Caterease without having to close the diagram first. Now you can switch back and forth between programs as much as you want, and still enjoy the power of this phenomenal interface!
August 25, 2007 - Build 663
Today's Weather
Another fun tool designed to make Caterease your all-purpose program! Say you're planning an outdoor event, and you need to know what the weather forecast is for the day. Simply click the Tools menu at the top of your Caterease screen and choose Internet Tools > Today's Weather. Your internet browser will open to weather.com with today's local weather (using the zip code stored in your Company Information to determine the locality).
Event Financial Information Hiding
Now you can prohibit individual Caterease users from being able to view any of an event's financial totals. Of course, in Caterease everything is carried through to the ultimate degree. So that means that this setting will also prevent a user from using the Event Payments, Event Deposits Due and Event Costing Summary tools – since all of those display the financial details of the event!
Event Print Restrictions
In keeping with the idea above, you can also prohibit individual users from generating certain event-specific prints. Choose whether or not users can generate a print identified as a "Contract", one identified as an "Invoice" or one identified as a "BEO". Therefore, you might choose to prevent someone from seeing event financial totals on screen (using the feature described above) and then prevent him or her from generate prints that show those totals, either!
August 6, 2007 - Build 662
Custom Multiple Prints Lists - Event Manager
Talk about a time saver! Think about this: you already know that you can select multiple event prints - for example, a Contract, a custom back-of-house print, an ingredients list, AND a merge letter - and generate all of them together with one mouse click. Well, now you can save that collection of prints and retrieve it instantly whenever you want! But wait - there's more! You can also enter unique quantities for each print in your custom list! Imagine! With one mouse click, you can choose to generate 1 contract, 2 kitchen prints, a payments list and 3 production sheets! And then you can instantly choose another list of prints! This is Caterease at its best!
Custom Multiple Prints Lists - Queries
This one bears repeating! The same amazing feature described above for the Event Manager is also available in your various query results screens. You can create a custom list of multiple event prints (or many custom lists) and generate them with just a mouse click! For example, you could run a query to show you all events coming up in the next two weeks, and then instantly retrieve the custom list of prints you want to generate for those parties - perhaps a contract for the customer, an ingredients list for the chef and a staffing sheet for your employees. What's more, you can save custom quantities for each print on your list. So you can generate 1 contract, 2 ingredients lists and 3 staffing sheets - for each event in your query results screen! Hours of work done in just seconds!
New Email Capabilities
Caterease now supports any MAPI provider. This means that you do not necessary need to be using Microsoft Outlook to take advantage of our incredible (and newly enhanced!) email features!
July 23, 2007 - Build 660
Editable Food/Service Items Packing Labels
Sure, you already had the ability to print menu item labels. But now, you can actually edit label details prior to printing! Not only that, but you can set quantities for each label - so if your Chef's Buffet will not all fit in one package, you can request multiple labels to suit your needs!
New Text Formatting Tools
Several new text formatting tools have been added throughout the program, including: New Bullet Wizard (create custom bullets), Increase Paragraph Indent, Decrease Paragraph Indent, and Normal Formatting (strips text of bolding, italics and underlines). In addition, the existing formatting tools have been enhanced to offer more better performance and reliability.
New, Streamlined Enterprise Server Setup
For large clients using multiple Caterease installations on a Citrix Server or through Windows Terminal Services, we have completely streamlined the way the server is setup. Now all data directories will be held in one program folder, making all future updates a snap. From now on, you'll only have to update one program, and that update will be shared to all of your installations automatically!
Remove Security Code Option
In order to help you maintain PCI compliance, a new Global Setting option allows you to remove the credit card security code number field from your program.
June 4, 2007 - Build 651
Event Wizard Enhancements
Now every event time is available for you in the Event Wizard as you book a new event. And just like in other areas of the program, you can remove times that do not apply and rearrange the way times are displayed on the Time Wizard tool.
Personal Email Address Book
In addition to storing email addresses for contact people and your various employees, your Caterease email address book now lets you create a list of personal addresses, as well. This limitless list is unique to each Caterease user, and not shared across the network.
Menu Item Quantity Link to Members/Non-Members
Rather than having the quantity of a menu item link to the number of general guests attending a party, you can link it specifically to the number of Member or Non-Members (or “Adults”, “Children”, “Students” – or whatever you’ve named these custom fields). For example, an event with 100 guests – 45 of whom are adults – can have a menu item with a quantity that automatically becomes 45, and changes as you edit the number of adults attending.
May 18, 2007 - Build 646
Menu Item Usage Report
This powerful report not only lists all menu items used during a particular date range –complete with details about the corresponding events – but also lists all items not used. This is a great way to see which items need more promotion, or need to be removed from your company’s menus!
Inventory “From” and “To” Times
Now you can assign a special “From” and “To” times to all inventoried menu items, different from the “Start” and “End” times of the corresponding event itself. Accurately keep track of availability of every replenishable menu item in your inventory.
Optional Staffing “Flat Rate” Wage
This handy feature lets you quickly change an employee’s wage from hourly to a flat rate. Simply type the amount, and it will be included in the event’s cost and calculated in your staffing costs – but will not change based on the number of hours an employee works.