Paperwork for US event venues and caterers, done properly

Sales tax (set by each state and locality) basics for venues and caterers

The United States has no VAT and no national sales tax. Each state, and often the county and city, sets its own sales tax, and states disagree on whether room rental, service charges and gratuities on a catered event are taxable. A venue in Manhattan, a caterer in Austin and a banquet hall in Los Angeles can put the same dinner on three differently taxed invoices. The IRS rule that an automatic gratuity is a service charge, and therefore wages, applies everywhere.

Sales tax changes at the state line, so your paperwork has to follow it

There is no federal sales tax. Each state writes its own rules, and they differ on exactly the lines that fill an event invoice. New York taxes a service charge on a catered event unless it is shown separately, labelled as a gratuity and paid in full to staff. California taxes a mandatory service charge even when every cent goes to the servers. Texas does not tax a separately labelled gratuity of 20 percent or less that goes to the staff who served, and does tax anything above that.

Room rental is the other trap. In New York, a room rented for a banquet is taxed as part of the event when the hotel or its own caterer provides the food, whether or not the room fee is a separate line. Rent the same room and let the client bring an outside caterer, and the room charge is not taxed. So one hall can owe tax on a room fee on Saturday and not owe it on Sunday.

The five documents, and where each one goes wrong

The quote sets the price per guest, the minimum, and what is and is not included. Its most common failure is leaving out the service charge and sales tax, so the client compares your $78 per person against a competitor who already included everything. Our quote template for the US (/us/quote-template) builds those in.

The catering contract (/us/catering-contract-template) turns the quote into obligations: final guest count deadline, deposit schedule, cancellation terms, what happens with overtime. The banquet event order (/us/banquet-event-order-template) is the internal sheet the kitchen, bar and floor work from. The catering invoice (/us/catering-invoice-template) is where state tax rules bite, and the receipt (/us/receipt-template) is your proof that each deposit arrived and how it was applied.

Service charge or gratuity: decide once, print it the same way everywhere

The IRS treats an automatic gratuity as a service charge, not a tip. That means any part you pay to staff is wages, with payroll tax withheld, not tip income they report themselves. It also means the word you print on the invoice matters twice: once for the IRS and once for your state sales tax. Pick one policy, write it into your quote, contract, BEO and invoice identically, and train your sales team to explain it.

Keep the paper trail longer than you think

The IRS general rule is to keep records for three years after you file, and four years for employment tax records such as the wages you paid out of service charges. State sales tax auditors work on their own clocks, and a disputed wedding can drag into small claims court a year later. Store every signed quote, contract, BEO, invoice and receipt for the event together, so that one search answers the auditor, the accountant and the angry father of the bride.

Where Venura fits for a US venue or caterer

Venura is booking and operations software built for banquet halls, event venues and caterers. US venues can subscribe and pay in US dollars. You set your own sales tax rate per line, so a room fee can be taxed at one rate and a gratuity left untaxed on the same invoice. It keeps the booking calendar with double-booking checks, quotes, invoices and receipts, deposits and balances, your enquiry pipeline, and event sheets for the kitchen in one place. Pricing for US venues is quoted individually, so ask us for a price for your number of rooms.

Questions from United States