How can this catering software Suite do so much?

- by using powerful spreadsheets that act as graphics containers for great visual presentations and know few limits as to how they can be adapted to your business styles

- along with all the usual database stuff - but with files that will export and import to all standard formats.

I have set up Bread and Blossoms Catering Proposal Presentation and Back Office Management Suite as a layer of programming that sits on top of a suite of programs from IBM®/Lotus® for which we provide you with a license.

By using this programming system as the basis for my catering software, I have enabled extensive functionality, the ease of use, the power of established software - all within a catering software program designed for the expression of your skills rather than the limitation of catering software possibilities.

Rather than using just a proprietary database program that links to Microsoft Word®, years of experiment and development have led me to elect to use both spreadsheet and database software programs as the foundation for this catering software suite. This freedom of expression and power of automation is a much more complicated to develop as software for the caterer but us infinitely more useful to that caterer - the caterer in you.

The database program allows us caterers to do the boring back-office stuff that is appropriate to the large catering business yet simple to use for the two person catering business that is determined to grow.

The databases for catering do all the requirements for a catering operation really well (just like any other catering software) but with the distinct advantage of the wisdom of IBM / Lotus underneath it all.

I've put all the catering visual presentation possibilities into a tremendously powerful spreadsheet.

The two systems talk back and forth to each other and exchange information as you develop a catering proposal or design the final job.

In this way we can build a "warehouse" of catering / banquet designs that fit in with what you most want – not what I choose to design for you that fits in with the database catering reports that are able to be written.

We're not talking about 3 slight variations on a BEO from the banquet department but, rather, hundreds of combinations of written and visual "catering" content that are all artworked together to reflect your own skills as a caterer and, then, through a series of choices that you make, are able to be adapted to the needs/expectations of the specific client and that client's perceived view of what that client "wants" in a caterer.

One size fits no one caterer and markets zilch to a client. So there is no "one size" in this catering software.

Finally, I incorporate elements of a very fine word processor from IBM/Lotus to do Customer Relationship Management – CRM: letters, e-mails, post cards, thank-yous, reminders and labels. Your catering and banquet clients can be easily contacted and kept up to date with your catering marketing objectives. "CRM" at your fingertips - the tremendous power of IBM / Lotus.

But a key point is that all the database files are usable: exportable and importable to and from almost any software that you might have.

Your catering data is not locked up and your current catering data is not locked out.

All details can be exported to your accounting software (if it supports import) so that your front office can talk to your accounting department.

And you as a caterer can talk to your clients in your own voice.