Banquet event order template for Canadian hotels, halls and caterers

What a BEO is and who works from it

The catering or sales manager writes the BEO once the event details are firm, the client signs it, and copies go to the kitchen, the banquet captain, the bar, setup and engineering, audio-visual and accounting. Each department reads its own part. The chef reads counts and dietary meals. Setup reads the floor plan. Accounting reads the billing block and the signature.

One booking can carry several BEOs. A three-day association conference in Ottawa might have a BEO for every breakfast, break, lunch and the gala dinner. A wedding usually has two: the ceremony and the reception.

Treat the signed BEO as the source of truth for the kitchen. If a planner phones the chef directly with a change, the chef should send them back to the catering manager for a new revision rather than cooking from a phone call.

BEO #0912 rev 2: foundation gala dinner, Montreal

Saturday fundraising gala for 300 guests in a Montreal hotel ballroom, cocktails 6 pm, dinner 7.30 pm, auction 9 pm, bar closes midnight

• Guarantee 300, set 309; billed on guarantee or actual, whichever is higher.
• Entree split: 176 duck, 102 arctic char, 22 vegetarian; 9 named allergy meals including 2 mustard and 1 sulphite.
• QST calculated on the price before GST; bar runs under the hotel liquor licence.

Priority allergens, Canadian list

Health Canada names the priority food allergens as eggs, milk, mustard, peanuts, crustaceans and molluscs, fish, sesame, soy, sulphites, tree nuts, and wheat and triticale. Gluten sources and sulphites are grouped with them because sensitive people react to them too. Mustard and sulphites are the two that US-trained staff tend to forget, so print the Canadian list on the BEO itself.

Record each declared allergy against a guest name, table and seat, and have the chef initial the allergen section at the BEO meeting. Sulphites deserve a note on the bar section as well, since many wines contain them.

• Eggs
• Milk
• Mustard
• Peanuts
• Crustaceans and molluscs
• Fish
• Sesame seeds
• Soy
• Sulphites
• Tree nuts
• Wheat and triticale

The bar section: licence, permit and last call

Write on the BEO whose licence covers the bar. A licensed hotel or hall serves under its own licence. A caterer with a catering endorsement may serve under that. An event at an unlicensed venue in Ontario normally needs a Special Occasion Permit from the AGCO, which lists $50 a day for a no-sale permit and $150 a day for a sale permit for private events. Other provinces have their own regulators and permits.

Then list the bar hours, last call, the brands in the package, whether it is host, cash or consumption, and any cap. Staff serving alcohol in Ontario need Smart Serve certification, so the staffing section should confirm it.

What your banquet event order must show in Canada

Quebec events: French wording and two taxes

The example on this page is a gala dinner in Montreal. Menus and printed materials for Quebec guests are commonly prepared in French or both languages, so the BEO has a field for the French menu text the client approved, and the kitchen works from the same wording. In the billing block, 5% GST and 9.975% QST appear on separate lines, with QST calculated on the price before GST, so together they add 14.975% to each taxable line.

Caterers in Quebec should also check Revenu Quebec mandatory billing rules, which require restaurant establishments including catering services to produce bills from a certified sales recording system.

Setup, floor plan and the details winter adds

Describe the room as the setup crew will build it: rounds of ten or eight, head table or sweetheart table, stage size and height, dance floor size, bars and their positions, the coat check. Attach a floor plan, because "rounds for 300 with a dance floor" can be built three ways and only one of them fits the fire code for that room.

Canadian winters add their own lines. A January gala needs a staffed coat check with enough racks for 300 parkas, somewhere dry for boots, and a plan for guests arriving late because of snow. Write the coat check hours and staffing on the BEO so the captain does not improvise them at 6 pm, and note any heated tent or entrance mat the venue must supply.

Conference BEOs for non-resident organisers

When a foreign organisation runs a convention in Canada, it may be able to claim a rebate of the GST/HST it paid on the convention facility and related supplies, with the rebate on food and beverages limited to half the tax. The CRA sets out the conditions in its travel and convention industry guidance.

Your BEOs and invoices make or break that claim. Keep room rental, food and beverage, audio-visual and other services on separate lines, and record the organiser name exactly as it appears on their registration. Organisers who have been through a Canadian convention before will ask for this split at the start. Offering it first marks you as a venue that understands international groups.

Guarantee, set count and revisions

Show the guaranteed count, the number the kitchen will set and prepare, and which is billed. Most venues set a few percent above the guarantee. Give the BEO a number and revision, reissue it for every change, and pull old copies from the kitchen. The guarantee deadline must match the contract, usually 72 hours to a week out.

The billing block

Repeat the prices from the contract, then the service charge and the taxes. In Canada, a gratuity or service charge added to the invoice is part of the price, so GST/HST applies to it. Voluntary tips are not taxed. List deposits received so accounting can build the final invoice straight from the signed BEO.

Banquet event order questions from Canada