Idle Ideas
Business apps
CaterPassLooking for testersI want to be a tester

For small catering businesses

From the first enquiry
to the paid invoice.

Enquiries, quotes, menus costed to the cent, the day's sheets for the kitchen and the floor, food-safety records and invoices, on your phone, tablet or computer. Every client, event, recipe and record lives on your own device — no cloud account, and nothing about your clients or their guests sent anywhere.

See it in use How it works Opening soon

14 days free from when you add your business or first client, then AU$99 a year. Cancel any time. Works offline.

CaterPass on a phone showing the Team card for the Harrow Street open studio. Tessa Marlow and Rafi Okonkwo are on with their phone numbers and a Call sheets for Wed 7 Oct button. Below, Shifts 2 of 3 filled: an event lead and a waiter both marked Confirmed, and a waiter shift still Unfilled. The card suggests one event lead, notes the waiter has nobody on it yet, and shows Labour: 15.0 hours, $600 with on-costs.

On the phone, the tablet or the laptop

Every screen fits whatever you've got: a phone at the venue, a tablet on the pass, or the laptop at night when the quotes and invoices go out.

CaterPass on a desktop showing Today's board for an example business, Lindenfold Catering, on Tuesday 6 October. Four cards show 3 events this week for 72 guests, $2,756 booked this week, 3 enquiries, holds and quotes waiting, and $1,840 owed. Below are today's event, a Corrowal board lunch drop-off for 10 guests, and an Enquiries waiting card with a kids' party enquiry waiting 48 hours and a Draft a reply button.
The CaterPass calendar on an upright tablet showing October 2026. Events sit on their days with their start times, prep days are marked with a pot icon, Labour Day is shaded, and school holidays are tinted. Below the month, Tuesday 6 October lists the Corrowal board lunch.
CaterPass on a phone showing Today's board for Tuesday 6 October: 3 events this week, $2,756 booked, 3 waiting and $1,840 owed, then today's events. A bottom tab bar has Today, Calendar, Events, Kitchen and More.

The same made-up example business on a laptop, a tablet and a phone: today's board, and the month with every event and prep day. Tap any screen to see it full size.

A one-minute look around

A quick walk through a made-up catering business: today's board, an enquiry and a quote, recipe costing, an event's sheets, the kitchen screen, call sheets on a phone, a food-safety record, the printable kit and reports.

A one-minute tour with captions and no sound, so you can watch it anywhere. Every business, client, venue and event in it is made up.

What it does

The parts of a caterer's week that usually live in an inbox, a spreadsheet, a whiteboard and a clipboard by the cool room.

A look inside

Real screens from CaterPass, showing its made-up example business. Tap any of them to see it full size.

A CaterPass quote on a desktop. Option A has three lines: a grazing table at $420 a metre for 2.4 metres, styling, delivery and collection, and gluten-free and vegan sections, each with a cost column. Below, a Margin panel marked Yours only, never on the quote shows food cost with a 5% buffer, overheads, total cost, revenue ex GST and a margin of $1,047.88, 81.5%, with food cost at 13% against a 30% target. Beside it, the totals: $1,415 including GST, $58.96 a head, a 25% deposit and the balance.
A quote being built, with the margin and food cost beside it. None of it prints.
The CaterPass kitchen on a desktop, open at Recipes. A card at the top warns that two dishes are over their food-cost target: slow-roasted lamb shoulder at 43.5% against 30%, and shaved fennel and orange salad at 35.2%. Below, recipes grouped by station show each batch's cost, the cost a portion or piece, prep time and how many dishes use it.
Recipes costed from ingredient prices, and the dishes that have slipped past their target.
The CaterPass printable kit on a tablet showing an A4 flyer for the example business Lindenfold Catering: the headline Catering for the days that matter, six ticked services, a guide to prices from $45 for a grazing box for two, and a dark green footer with the enquiries phone number and email.
The printable kit: a letterbox flyer with the business's own wording, services and prices.
CaterPass Food safety on a phone. Today's checks lists the floors still to record, with a Record button, and a running timer for boxed lunches at 50 minutes. Record something offers buttons for a delivery in, fridge temps, cooking, time out of the fridge, cooling, reheating, display and transport.
Food safety: today's checks, running timers, and one tap to record a reading.
The CaterPass kitchen screen on a phone for Tuesday 6 October, noting the screen stays awake while the page is open. Today's prep, 2 to make, grouped by station: 68 mini sausage rolls in the pastry section for two Corrowal events, with a tick box, the recipe card and the method, then a shaved fennel and orange salad in the cold larder.
The kitchen screen: the day's prep by station, in big type, with a box to tick.
CaterPass Dispatch on a phone for Tuesday 6 October, with Weekly roster and Timesheets buttons, a Print all for the day button for call sheets, and the day's shifts: a driver confirmed for the Corrowal board lunch, with their call time and a note to park in the loading bay.
Dispatch: the day's shifts, and a call sheet for each person.
The CaterPass opening screen on a phone: a dark green CP monogram crossed by a copper line, with CaterPass and Catering, run from your own device underneath, centred on a pale linen background.
The opening screen: the CaterPass mark shows for a moment, or tap to skip.

How it works

  1. Set up

    Your business details and logo, your pricing and payment terms, then your dishes and menus. Add recipes and ingredient prices when you're ready, and costing switches on.

  2. Win the work

    Paste or type an enquiry, check the date, quote with options, and follow up. When the client says yes, the deposit invoice is one tap away.

  3. Run the day

    Prep and shopping lists, the event sheet, shifts and call sheets, the pack list ticked at load-out, and the food-safety readings as you go.

  4. Get paid and back up

    The final invoice subtracts the deposit, payments are recorded as they land, and a thank-you goes out with your review link. Export a backup now and then; it's the only copy that exists.

Pricing

One plan, billed once a year. No per-user fee, no surprise tiers.

Trial

Every feature 14 days

Every feature, no card, no sign-up. The 14 days start when you add your business details or your first client — not when you open the app, and looking around the example business doesn't use them up.

Subscription

AU$99 per year

The whole price — no GST on top. Renews automatically once a year, with a reminder email seven days before. Cancel any time in the billing portal or from your receipt email, with no fee. Without a subscription CaterPass goes read-only: nothing is deleted, and everything stays on your device to view, print and back up.

Where your data lives

  • Every client, event, quote, invoice, recipe and record is stored in your browser on your device
  • Guests' dietaries and allergies, your staff's details and your photos stay on the device too, never uploaded
  • Quotes, invoices, sheets and messages are made on the device and sent from your own email or messages app
  • There is no account, no database and no sign-in
  • The only outside call is checking your licence key once you've bought one — plus, only if you switch it on, reading one photo of a handwritten recipe or invoice with AI
  • Export makes a full backup file you keep wherever you like

What it isn't

  • A cloud service. Nothing syncs live between devices; a laptop and a phone are kept in step by sending a backup across.
  • A food-safety certificate. It keeps your records and prompts; it never certifies anything
  • Payroll, accounting or tax software. Pay is hours times your own rates, not award pay
  • Something your clients log into. They get PDFs, emails and texts from you

Put it on your phone

CaterPass is a web app that installs like a normal app on a phone, a tablet or a computer. No app store needed, and it works with no signal — a marquee in a paddock, a basement function room, the lot.

iPhone or iPad

  1. Open CaterPass in Safari.
  2. Tap the Share button.
  3. Choose Add to Home Screen, then Add.

Android phone or tablet

  1. Open CaterPass in Chrome.
  2. Tap the three-dot menu.
  3. Choose Install app or Add to Home screen.

Laptop or desktop

  1. Open CaterPass in Chrome or Edge.
  2. Click the install icon at the right of the address bar.
  3. It opens in its own window from then on.

Help sheets

Step-by-step sheets with a picture for every step. Print them, or keep them on the phone.

Put CaterPass on your phone

Six steps for Android, then six for iPhone and iPad, from opening the browser to CaterPass's icon on your Home screen.

Open the sheet

PDF, two A4 pages, 389 KB.

Backups: make one, load one

Page one emails a backup to yourself. Page two puts it back, on the same phone or a new one.

Open the sheets

PDF, two A4 pages, 423 KB.

Questions

When does my free trial start?

When you add your business details or your first client — not when you first open the app. Looking around the example business, and changing things in it, don't count. CaterPass tells you when the 14 days have started, and the start date goes into your backups, so restoring on a new device carries on the same trial rather than starting another.

Do my clients see CaterPass?

No. Quotes and invoices go out as PDFs, prints, emails or texts from your own apps, carrying your logo and business name. Nothing links back to CaterPass or to your website.

Can my team see the same events?

Not live. CaterPass has no server, so each device holds its own copy. Run it on one phone, tablet or laptop and send each person their call sheet from there: print, email, text or copy, with the venue, map, access notes, their shift and the client's number. To keep a laptop and a phone in step, Export backup on one and Bring in changes on the other: the two are combined, so new things on either both stay, and nothing goes through us. Making changes needs the licence on one device at a time.

Does it certify my food safety?

No. It keeps the records a category-one business keeps under Standard 3.2.2A, shows FSANZ's published limit beside a reading as a hint, and records whether the person who took it judged it OK. It doesn't decide what's safe, and it doesn't replace your food safety program, your Food Safety Supervisor or your council's requirements.

Where do guests' allergies go?

Into the guest list on the event, on your device only. They show in red on the dietary list, labels and table cards, and they never go into a marketing export. You can paste a guest list straight from a spreadsheet.

Does it work out award pay?

No. Shifts are costed at your own rates for each role and day, plus the on-costs you set, so you can see what an event costs in labour. The timesheet is a file for Xero Payroll or Deputy; award pay, tax and super stay with them or your accountant.

What's the AI bit?

Optional and off until you switch it on. CaterPass reads a photo of a supplier invoice or a recipe card on your device. For handwriting it can't manage, you can tick a box and send that one photo to be read by AI, which returns the words and keeps nothing. Everything else works without it.

Does it work with no signal?

Yes. Once it's installed it runs fully offline — the whole app and all your data are already on the device. You only need a connection to open it the very first time and to activate your licence; being offline never locks you out.

What happens after the 14-day trial?

CaterPass becomes read-only until you subscribe. Nothing is deleted: everything stays on your device to view and print, you can still send what you've already written and record payments, food-safety records still go in, and Export still makes a full backup.

What happens if I lose my phone?

Your data was only on that phone, so you'd restore from your last Export file. CaterPass nudges you weekly to make one — it's a single file you can keep in email, Drive or iCloud.

CaterPass is looking for testers.

It's in private testing before it opens. If you run a small catering business and want to try it on your own events, email caterpass@idleideas.com.au and say what kind of catering you do.

I want to be a tester