Purchasing & demand forecasting

Planning Purchases with the Forecast and Purchasing Views

The Purchasing section of CaterCloud gives catering businesses a central place to create, track, and action purchase orders against upcoming events. Use it alongside the Forecast tab to make sure you're buying the right ingredients at the right time — without over-ordering or running short on event day.

Getting to the Right Place

Navigate to Pantry → Purchasing to see all your purchase orders. If you haven't created any yet, head to Pantry → Forecast first to review what ingredients your upcoming events require and generate draft orders from there.

Understanding the Purchasing View

Orders are organised by status. Use the filter tabs at the top of the page to narrow your view:

• All — every order across all statuses
• Draft — orders generated but not yet approved or sent
• Sent — orders already emailed to a supplier
• Received — orders fully or partially received into stock
• Cancelled — voided orders

Each order card shows the supplier name, status badge, total value, and the event window the order covers. Click the chevron on any card to expand it and see individual line items, quantities, and unit costs.

Acting on a Draft Order

Once you've reviewed a draft order and it looks correct:

1. Expand the order card to confirm line items and quantities match your needs.
2. If the supplier has an ordering email on file, click Send to supplier to email the order directly from CaterCloud. The status updates to Sent automatically.
3. When stock arrives, click Receive to open the receiving drawer and log quantities against each line item. Orders with partial deliveries move to Partially received so nothing gets lost.
4. To void an order that's no longer needed, use the Cancel action — available on both Draft and Sent orders.

Auto-Generated vs. Manual Orders

A small badge on each order tells you how it was created:

• Auto — generated by CaterCloud based on reorder points and upcoming event demand
• Manual — created by a team member directly

> Tip: Keep supplier ordering emails up to date on each supplier record so you can send orders in one click without leaving CaterCloud.