Catering receipts, invoices and W-9s: what accounting will ask for

A catering invoice is the last thing anyone thinks about and the first thing accounting asks for. The lunch was a hit, the conference room was full, and three days later there is an email from accounts payable wanting an itemized invoice, a W-9 and a PO number that nobody requested. I have answered a lot of paperwork questions from office managers over the years, and I have learned that the lunch is only finished when the expense is approved. Here is what accounting will want, and how to have it ready before they ask.

The short answer: Accounting needs three things: an itemized invoice showing the vendor’s name and address, the delivery date, each line with quantity and unit price, and the total; a receipt if the lunch was paid on a card and someone is being reimbursed; and, for a new vendor, a W-9 before the first payment. Sort out which ones you need before you order and the expense report closes itself. At Maggie’s, every order is paid online when you place it, so the paperwork starts with the order confirmation.

None of this is hard. It is just easy to forget while you are counting heads and picking between pork and chicken. So let me walk through it the way an office manager would, from the first order to the recurring one, with the questions accounting tends to ask along the way.

Receipt or invoice: which one accounting wants

People use the words interchangeably, and accounting does not. A receipt proves that a payment happened. An invoice is a bill that says what is owed, by whom, for what, and by when. Which one you need depends on how the lunch was paid for.

• Paid on a personal or corporate card, to be reimbursed? Accounting wants a receipt. Orders from my kitchen are paid online in our online store when they are placed, and the order confirmation is the record to attach; that is usually enough for an expense report. The how to order page explains how ordering works.
• Billed to the company? Accounting wants an invoice, and it wants the invoice to match the quote, the PO if there is one, and what actually arrived. That is how many full-service caterers work. Because orders from my kitchen are paid online up front, ask your accounting team before you order whether a card payment with the order confirmation works for them.
• Both? Sometimes the office manager pays the invoice on a company card and still has to attach the invoice as the receipt. The invoice marked paid, with the date and the last four digits of the card, does both jobs.

The rule I give office managers: if someone other than you is going to look at this lunch on a spreadsheet, get the most detailed record the vendor offers, not just a card slip. It has the detail the spreadsheet needs.

What a catering invoice should show

A good catering invoice answers every question accounting could ask without a phone call. Here is what to expect from any caterer who wants to be paid on time, and what to check on any order record you hand to accounting.

1. The vendor’s legal name and address. For my kitchen, that is Maggie’s Tamales & Catering in Plano, TX. Accounting matches this against the W-9, so it has to be the same on both.
2. An invoice number and an invoice date. Accounts payable files by invoice number. An invoice without one gets a made-up number and a note in the file, and nobody wants a note in the file.
3. The date of service. The day the food was delivered, which is not always the invoice date. This is the date the expense belongs to, and it matters at month end and quarter end.
4. The bill-to name and the ship-to address. The company and department paying, and the office where the food went, with the suite number. For a company with several locations, this is how the cost lands in the right place.
5. Itemized lines with quantity and unit price. Four dozen pork tamales in red salsa at $60 per dozen, $240. Not one line that says catering. Accounting needs to see that the unit price times the quantity equals the line, and the lines add up to the total.
6. Any charges shown separately. Sales tax, and any delivery charge, as their own lines. In my online store the delivery fee is shown at checkout, before you pay, so there are no surprises between the order and the record.
7. Payment terms and how to pay. When it is due and how to send it, so nobody has to email to ask.
8. Your PO number and the occasion. If your company issues purchase orders, the PO goes on the invoice. And a short line like staff lunch, sales training, or client meeting helps whoever codes the expense later.

That last line is the one most caterers leave off and most accountants love. It turns a $300 invoice into something they can categorize in ten seconds. If the vendor’s record has no room for it, write it on the expense report yourself the day you order.

The W-9 question

The first time a company pays a new vendor, accounts payable usually asks for a W-9. Office managers sometimes apologize for asking, as if it were a strange request. It is not. It is the most normal piece of paper in the whole process.

A W-9 is the IRS form a business uses to give a customer its legal name, address and taxpayer identification number. Companies collect one from every vendor so their records are right and so they can file any year-end tax reporting they need to. Whether a company must report payments to a caterer depends on how the business is organized and what the payment was for, and that is your accountant’s call, not mine. What I can tell you is that their department will ask, and that it is routine.

Ask for the W-9 before the first order. For my kitchen, call or text (469) 888-8398 or email [email protected]. Then your vendor setup is done before the food arrives, and the first expense goes through instead of sitting in a queue waiting on a form.

A few larger companies have a full vendor packet: a new vendor form, a request for a certificate of insurance, a direct-deposit form. Ask what your packet requires and I will tell you what I can provide and how quickly. Most office managers who set this up once never think about it again, and setting up a corporate catering account walks through the whole list.

PO numbers, quotes and the order they go in

The invoices that get stuck are almost never wrong. They are out of order. The lunch happened, the invoice arrived, and then someone realized there was no purchase order, so the invoice waits while a PO is created after the fact for something that already happened. Every accountant I have met hates that.

With a full-service caterer, the clean order is this: quote first, PO second, delivery third, invoice fourth. Request the quote with the headcount and the date, have your company issue a PO against it if it uses POs, and the invoice that follows the delivery carries the PO number and clears. With my kitchen there is no quote: the prices are on the menu and you pay online when you order. If your company needs a PO, get it approved for the dozens and the delivery fee before you place the order, then attach the order confirmation to it.

If your company does not use purchase orders, the quote still matters with a full-service caterer, because it is what accounting compares the invoice against. How to write a catering request shows what to put in the first message so a quote is right the first time, and catering deposits and payment covers what usually happens between the quote and the invoice for larger orders. For Maggie’s, payment is simple: you pay online when you order.

Reading a tamale lunch order line by line

Here is what a typical office lunch order from our kitchen adds up to, for a staff of 30 at two tamales per person, rounded up to whole dozens. The numbers are the real menu prices.

Every line can be checked with a calculator. Three dozen at $60 is $180. Two dozen at $60 is $120. Sixty tamales at $5 each is $300. Anything beyond the food is shown at checkout before you pay. Put the delivery date, the PO number and a line that says staff lunch on the expense report, and the whole thing takes an accountant less time to approve than it took the office to eat.

If you want to see what the food side of that invoice looks like on the table, the office catering page covers meetings, training days and monthly lunches, and the menu has the half-dozen and dozen prices the order is built from.

Recurring orders, split bills and expense categories

Once an office orders more than once, the paperwork gets simpler, not harder, as long as you set it up on purpose.

The same order every month

For a monthly lunch, which we call Tamale Day, place the same order in our online store each month: the same dozens, the same split, the same address. Each order is paid online and comes with its own order confirmation, in the same format every time. Accounting learns to expect it, the PO can be a blanket one for the year if your company works that way, and the office manager stops re-solving lunch every four weeks. One office reviewer wrote that everyone at her company looks forward to tamale day; I suspect her accountant likes that the paperwork never changes shape.

Several departments, several locations

If sales and engineering split the lunch, the simplest route is two orders, each paid on that department’s card, so each has its own order confirmation. If the same lunch goes to your Richardson office and your Plano office on the same day, place one order per address, so the cost lands where it belongs.

Which category the lunch goes in

Whether an office lunch is an employee meal, a client meeting, a training expense or something else is a question for your accountant, and the answer affects how it is treated on the books. I will not pretend to know your chart of accounts. What helps is writing the occasion on the expense report the day you order, so the coding takes ten seconds instead of an email thread, and keeping every lunch itemized so nothing has to be guessed at later.

The office manager’s checklist

• Headcount, date, delivery time, and the name of the person receiving the food.
• Bill-to company and department, ship-to address with suite number.
• PO number, if your company issues them, approved before you order.
• W-9 and any vendor forms requested before the first order.
• The occasion, in four words or fewer, for the expense report.
• Where the order confirmation should go, whether that is you, a shared AP inbox, or both.

Settle that list before your first order and the paperwork will never be the slow part. Reheating, dietary questions and the other things accounting will not ask about are on the FAQ page.

Ready to order with the paperwork done?

Check with accounting whether a card payment with the order confirmation works, and whether they need a W-9 or a vendor form first; for those, call or text (469) 888-8398 or email [email protected]. Then order in our online store: chicken or pork, a half dozen or a dozen, delivery or pickup, paid online, with the delivery fee shown at checkout. Maggie’s delivers office lunches across Richardson, Plano and the northern suburbs. Order for the office and get the lunch and the paperwork out of your inbox in one step.

Frequently asked questions

What should a catering invoice include for an expense report?

The vendor’s legal name and address, an invoice number, the invoice date and the delivery date, the bill-to and ship-to, itemized lines with quantity and unit price, any tax or delivery charge as separate lines, the total, payment terms, and your PO number if you have one. A short line naming the occasion helps whoever codes the expense. If the invoice was paid on a card, have it marked paid.

Is a catering receipt the same as an invoice?

No. A receipt proves a payment happened; an invoice is the bill that shows what is owed, for what, and by when. If someone is being reimbursed for a card payment, accounting wants the receipt. If the company is being billed, accounting wants the invoice, and it should match the quote and any purchase order. Often the paid invoice serves as both.

Why does my company need a W-9 from the caterer?

A W-9 gives your company the caterer’s legal name, address and taxpayer identification number, and most accounts payable departments collect one from every new vendor before the first payment so their records and any year-end reporting are correct. Whether your company has to report payments to a caterer is your accountant’s decision. Ask for the W-9 before the first order; for Maggie’s, call or text (469) 888-8398 or email [email protected].

Can I get a purchase order before the catering is delivered?

Yes, and that is the right order of operations. With a full-service caterer, request the quote, have the PO issued against it, and the invoice will carry the PO. With Maggie’s there is no quote: the prices are on the menu and the delivery fee is shown at checkout, so get the PO approved for that total, place the order online, and attach the order confirmation. Accounts payable can then approve it without creating a PO after the fact.

Can catering be billed to two departments or two offices?

Yes. The simplest way with Maggie’s is one order per department, each paid on its own card, so each has its own order confirmation. For the same lunch going to two locations on the same day, place one order per address, so the expense lands in the right cost center without anyone reallocating it later.

How does the paperwork work for a recurring office lunch?

Each month is its own order in our online store, paid online when it is placed, with its own order confirmation in the same format every time. Many companies issue a blanket PO for the year. The office manager checks the headcount a few days before each delivery and orders the dozens actually needed that month.