Total Party Planner

Excellent and Thankful

My overall experience is a 10 out of 10. Takes away the headache that is caused by other catering softwares.

Catering Software

The best! The customer service is always on top of any questions or help we need. Honestly I've never worked with any company that was so helpful!

Event Management Great- TPP Pay- DEPLORABLE !

The best customer service EVER

We have been able to integrate all of our invoicing, client contacts, client contracts, itineraries , calendars, menu building, cost analysis and inventory into ONE software package. TPP truly offers the ability to easily integrate all of your functionalities into one silo.

Best Software for Catering & Event Planning around

Phenomenal. It completely changed and streamlined our process.

Making My Life Easier!

Super amazing - our productivity is positively benefited!! Thank you TPP team!!

TPP the overview

TPP had a big learning curve and takes a lot of effort to put together but once you have the system in place it can do amazing things.

The Best Catering Software

TPP-Totally Perfect Planning

Hands down THE BEST

We've grown our business since starting with TPP. As we are able to track more.

Excellent Customer Service

Having worked in multiple industries with many different companies, TPP's customer service team is exceptional. They are the folks that make the software worth the expense.

Great piece of software, with the best customer service around

I work for a mid-sized off-site catering company. We have used Total Party Planner (TPP) for more than a decade, so we have lots of experience in using this product, over 25,000 events. We started off on the stand-alone version and ran it for about 8.5 years, then switched over to the web-based version more than a year ago.

Before we purchased TPP, I tried 3 or 4 other pieces of event planning software over several months. TPP was clearly the best: The most organized, and the easiest to use. And the web-version is easier and faster to use than was the stand-alone version.

TPP is an excellent piece of software. It is stable, and just plain works well. You can tell that the people who designed the software have a background in catering, because it does the things you need it to do to help automate the process.

Many of our sales people (5) are not what I would call 'computer people', and one in particular took some time getting used to TPP, but now they are all lost without it.

One thing we do that is somewhat unusual (for a catering company) is we do a fair number of deliveries where the food is delivered in disposable containers, with no servers, mostly business lunches. We use a different report for these to make clear to the kitchen at a glance that this is a delivery and not a full-service event, and the people at TPP helped us to 'tweak' that report to include everything we needed in it. That was hugely important to us, and TPP was glad to help modify the report.

To be fair, I cannot comment on a couple of features. We don't use the room reservation system, as we have no rooms to manage. I also cannot comment on the recipe section of the software, as we used different recipe software before TPP came along and have stuck with it, because the kitchen people know how to use it.

The best part of TPP may be their Tech Support. It's simply the best I have ever used, for any software. 95% of the time when we call them, a real person answers the phone, and our issue is generally resolved in 5-10 minutes. On the very rare occasion when we get the answering machine, we always receive a call back within 10-15 minutes.

No software is perfect, and TPP is no exception. Occasionally it feels like there is an extra mouse click or two required to do some simple thing, but at least the program is consistent about that from section to section.

For event planning, it would be hard to improve upon Total Party Planner.

Total Party Planner Fan!

They actually listen to their clients and work on supplying them the most efficient ways of utilizing their system. Overall; I have had more "wow" moments from the type of service they have provided. From the friendly way they respond to phone calls to the "all-hands" approach to trying to help you solve an issue...even if it has nothing to do with their software. THAT is EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

We love TPP!

I have been using Total Party Planner for my catering business the last four years and I can honestly say I don't know what we would do without the software. It is the lifeline to our business and helps to keep us organized in the office and in the kitchen! The value of time savings and the functionality of the software is invaluable. They are constantly adding new features and functions to make life easier for the end user. I can honestly say every person that uses the system and program learns quickly and is able to use the components of the software that apply to their job position very easily. I honestly recommend any one with a catering or food related business to check out Total Party Planner for their software solution. It has changed how we do business and has increased our revenue streams as a result of the added organization and time savings the program provides our company. From pack lists to recipe analysis to food cost tracking this software has it all! Highly recommend!

Customer Service

I Love This Program!

I have been using TTP for approximately 4-5 years. It is the most convenient way to do menus, keep track of menu items, do proposals, invoicing, checklists, almost everything I need for my catering company. They are super responsive to emails and calls and very very nice to work with. In addition to the benefit of your information being stored OUTSIDE your computer (which is much safer - yes I've lost mine), they do frequent updates to the program resulting in easier use and better applications.
They have an app. It doesn't have too many functions yet. I'm hoping that will improve soon. But it's useful for looking up basic event information on the go.
Try it out! It's one of the best out there! (And, yes, I've used others)

Thanks for making me look good!

I just wanted to let you know what a great product that we believe that you have!

I first researched your product, after a rave review from another local caterer, I then convinced the company that I was working for to get your software. When I made the change over to Jonz Catering, the owner was still using 'Hammer and Chisel' (Office Word and a calculator, not EVEN excel!!), to do catering proposals. I told her that even as AMAZING that I am, my typing skills leave something to be desired! If she wanted productivity and an updated, professional look, I needed to bring her into the 21st century!! She dragged her feet for about a month and then finally looked at the website'she was hooked! At least once a month for the last year she has thanked me in one way or another for 'revolutionizing' her life! About 6 months ago, we got robbed and they stole her computer. We lost a lot of history for the business, but now that we are in the cloud, we didn't miss a beat. She was so happy!!

TPP Helped me grow to over 10 million in annual revenue.

I started using TPP's desktop solution in 2005. We wuickly switched to their online solution within the year. In that time TPP has helped City Catering grow to over 10 million dollars in annual revenue. Their catering background shows in the forward thinking updates to the program and their support team is fast and responsive. We use the program to its fullest and have had excellent results. TPP is a valued partner in growing my business.

Amy's Two Cents on her life in TPP

We found TPP a couple years back when we first started Tuscan Hall Banquet Center, and needed an online option. I was working here part time, working from home, so online access was needed for my boss and myself to be able to log in and see what I was doing. Mobility was a big asset. We like the functionality of TPP, there are so many things we still are not using because our business has boomed so quickly, but I use TPP every single day!

We rely on TPP for everything. Who know as a full time events specialist that many hours of my week would be spent on data entry ( and I type FAST!!! ) . What I enter has such an impact on our daily events and catering lives, its super important that I understand each and every aspect of TPP and that it works correctly! We use our calendars daily and the export feature is still giving me issues, but I am so busy I have not had time to call.

We really like the customer service, the quick responses, and the fact that you care about our small business makes us happy. We will stick with TPP! We cant function without you!

Happy customer for about 4 years!

I shopped around for software for our catering business, tried one other company but discontinued the service, when I did a trial for Total Party Planner, I switch right away and have been using it ever since. TPP software is very user-friendly for people like myself who are not extremely tech savvy.
The help desk has always solved my problems or answered a question within minutes of calling, which is a greatly reassuring feature, for the fast pasted work of catering and needing solutions quickly.
I would highly recommend TPP software for any catering company who is growing and needs to organize, streamline and make their operation more efficient.

Great value

Been a TPP user for almost 8years now. They have a great product and they know catering. I also like how responsive they are. I've made a few suggestions and they made changes that helped not only me, but the rest of the TPP users. Such a valuable experience!

Changed our Business

TPP has changed our business. Gone are word docs, spreadsheets and calculators. We are fast, efficient and can track food costs, sales and many many other details with the click of a button. It is intuitive and easy to use. WE ADORE customer support who have helped us through our many questions and help us to progress using the crazy amount of possibilities with the software. They also listened to our previous processes and help us to fit them into TPP or offer other more efficient options.

Amazing

Exceptional.

Couldn't operate with it!

The value for this software is amazing. We are able to schedule, produce and manage hundreds of events. Client management, recipes, costing, order lists, many reports, event worksheets for the kitchen, and inventory management just scratch the surface of what TPP can do. I love the extras, such as credit card processing, and linking to my other favorite programs. The customer service team is ALWAYS available to help you solve any issue and listening to your suggestions. They are always making improvements to better serve the client. I can't say enough good things!

Total Party Planner makes my job so much easier.

We have been using Total Party Planner for a few years and found the program to be very beneficial to our company. We have always had great customer service from the initial training through present day. Total Party Planner has been great about hearing our requests and making the changes to the program. The ease of working from anywhere with your computer or phone is beyond convenient. We have been much more efficient with our time by using the program for completing proposals, submitting orders, and giving kitchen staff production worksheets. Wonderful program and company...very pleased with the products and people!

Absolutely LOVE TPP

Everyone working within TPP is kind, knowledgeable & super helpful. If anything else, you will definitely appreciate their amazing customer service. [sensitive content hidden] is amazing. She answers any questions that you have & checks in with you to see how you're coming along with the program. [sensitive content hidden] is super responsive & helpful when it comes to TPP Pay and is very friendly. [sensitive content hidden] (from Client Care) has been the best person throughout this entire process. He's very patient, caring & works hard for you to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

TPP is a must have for any catering operation!

Very few things can buy you time to actually run your business - TPP does, and extremely well!

I was you, 1 year ago. My restaurant was running me, requests for catering were pouring in and we had just put our catering food truck on the road. I was stressed to the max, drowning in Excel Catering Event Order spreadsheets and missing catering pick-up orders and panicking my kitchen.
I know.. you assume that I'm a newbie, and that's sweet.

I'm in my 30th year of cooking for a living, and at the age of 43 own one of the top restaurants in my industry category in our Province. We staff 40 plus people for a 15 table full-service restaurant that turns 10 to 11 times a day from Thursday to Sunday - every week. That doesn't include six figures per year in take-out and six figures in Catering now a year later. Add to that, I'm no slouch on the computer and can code in Excel like it's second nature.

Why do you need to know this? It gives you context for this review.
Without Total Party Planner to take away the headaches of searching for pricing, building proposals, databasing clients and providing seamless continuity for all of our communication, we wouldn't be able to grow like we have.
Yes... evaluate how much the software costs, and look at your business and determine if you can afford it - it's not cheap. However, bear in mind this one caveat.

- How much is your time worth?
- How much are you spending in repairing your credibility with clients, when you miss a detail?
- How much are you losing when you forget to add a detail to an order and have to take it at a
loss?
- Are your skills being utilized in the right facet? I'm a chef, not an event planner and certainly not an accountant. TPP assists me to be a better business person. I could have designed a database in MS Access, or continued in Excel - but why? My results would not have produced the package that TPP offers.

I know what you're thinking... this reads too good to be true, and in fact, there is one thing that needs to be cleared up.
This program came easy to me, it all made sense from a Culinary perspective and the types of information required to utilize the program to its fullest were familiar to me. There, I said it, this is a professional level program. Not that it's just for enterprise level clients, but, hospitality professionals. Just be prepared. The learning curve here is quite steep for the uninitiated.
But.... Their customer service is outstanding... really... they care - a lot. I use 8 different subscription business services, and TPP is the best!

Total Party Planner ROCKS!

Total party planner is awesome! We've had it for about 10 years and continue to grow and use it more and more! The biggest thing it has helped with is showing us when we are making money! I love the features and ability to plan and account for labor in the kitchen and at events. I LOVE that once I have my recipes in, it will generate for my staff exactly how much of each ingredient to use as well as PRINT ME OUT an ORDER list!! As we have grown over the years, this order list feature saves considerable time and the event production keeps our staff on proper useage. I also use it to run my sales tax report - SO FAST, better than adding all my events by hand. Creating proposals, checking accounts receivables, so many reports, and there are even reports and features that we have yet to take advantage of. We are able to take credit cards thru TPP. The site is never down, I use the webbased program so that myself and my staff can access and work from home or our phone or anywhere we can get online - creating a flexible and family friendly work environment for us!
In the catering industry, in international catering groups that I belong to, myself and a multitude of others are known as the tpp groupies! We are always promoting and singing TPP praises as the go to catering software program. I recommend them to everyone and have even suggested using this program in other industries to associates of mine. That the founder came from a catering family business background is evident in this success of this program.

The do all easy to use event management software .

First off I want to say that I am not being paid or compensated to write this review.

I have been using total party planner for over 20 years. As a professional chef In my career I have owned a banquet facilitiy, 3 restaurants and five catering companies. I have also consulted for many clients starting up new catering or banquet operations and seasoned veterans focusing on organizational management and culinary .

The things that I always look for when implementing a new organizational management piece of software or system is speed of integration and ease of use. Total party planner never fails. Ever.
Event bookings client management party planning culinary integration costing all done effortlessly. When the software was first introduced I had zero computer experience nothing. I booked my first party in 10 minutes without even doing a tutorial. The reason I mention this is to emphasize the ease of use. In this modern age of ultra simple apps and dumb down software many times we find ourselves sacrificing attention to detail or the ability to do something specific and unique to our business. This is another area that total party planner shines. The guy that invented the software is the son of a caterer and was probably working weekends in a professional kitchen when he was 10 years old . He knows all the little details and things that make our lives easier when doing a catering job or running a banquet. All the details like what items to pull for a party staffing and client special notes are integrated into a easy to follow format.

When I have consulted for clients either starting up or running a catering or banquet business the first thing I always notice is they have multiple salesman and secretaries handling all the paperwork and Client details. I have always been able to cut at least half of the office and sales staff by implementing total party planner. Yeah, do the math in your head, how much money would that save a year? LOL for solo operators the time savings alone is monumental. Allowing you to focus on the fun stuff like developing new recipes designing new menus or making a clients party extra special. No one wants to spend time doing paperwork this allows you to get back to what we all got into this business for, creating great events.
If you would like to chat with me about this software and how it works hit me with an email and I'll give you a ring.
[email protected]

Total Party Planner is the best way to run your catering business

By using TPP for the past many years we have been able to take the standardization of our operation to levels that were difficult to attain with our previous system. TPP is able to offer all of the pertinent information about each event in one location. Our teams have access to everything they need to execute the event to our exacting standards.

Efficient and Effective Software Program

In a World Where Customer Service is a Dying Art, this is Customer Service at Its Finest

The software streamlines the process from inquiry to close. Customer Service is ALWAYS Phenomenal. I'd like to give a shout out to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and to any representative whom I have failed to name, THANK YOU TOO! I don't feel like a client, I feel like the TTP Tech Support is part of our Team!!!

Great software for catering!

Our order taking time has definitely improved, and since the reports generate on their own, that saves a ton of time. We used to fill out a paper form, then translate it to a PDF confirmation to email our clients. This software has made my life easy! It's easy to jump between events, and go back in, without losing any information in the process.

Total Party Planner (TPP)

TPP is a robust piece of software. You can really tell that John and his team have had every experience in the catering industry and that they have put these experiences into the software. This has been very helpful for us as we fell into catering. Now we are looking to fine tune our operation. The plug in services have worked very well for us as well. TPP has helped take us from a 30k company to just under 7 figures. Thank you.

User Friendly, Great for Client Proposals

Overall, the experience with TPP has been good, with some room for improvement.

One of the few things that actually gets you more time to run your business!

It has allowed us to move into the cloud and keep all of our information in a reliable and easily interfaced system.

Nothing else compares

Nothing but fantastic.

Happy caterer!

It has been something I’ve wanted to do for years and I finally made the commitment and extremely happy I did. I was hoping to utilize the packing list portion of the software but just haven’t yet but hope to at some point.

This is a review

great overall

Amazing Software, Stellar Customer Service

From start to finish TPP's customer service was always friendly, and above & beyond helpful. If they didn't have a feature, they worked on creating one. They have great work-arounds to manage almost anything you need. The use of the software increased our efficiency, productivity and therefore profitability almost instantly. It takes a little bit of practice to get everything sorted out and create proposals but once you get the hang of it you fly through them send customers professional and thorough proposals and invoices super quickly and close the deal. I can't say enough good things about the service and the staff! Totally worth the cost.

Used for three years and it was great but the new view they have rolled out is full of...

It was a great product that served our company for several years. It allowed our business to grow and service a retail store front, a catering and bakery business in a new expanded facility. Currently we are spending more time trying to fix problems with the software than we are spending with clients. It is costing us money in labor, time off task, plus the added expense of redoing the event over and over to get it correct.

Fantastic!

It has been a life changer

Well, I started out as a desktop user and I cannot say enough about how TTP changed my life--it cut my time planning events in half and my food cost went down 10%. Making a shopping/ordering list is now something that I can do in 10-15 minutes for a whole week's worth of orders.
Customer service is A+++++. They are personally invested in my use. It is unbelievable how helpful the staff is and their follow up. I love the way support calls back to check on me a day or two after a question or a problem.
If you take the amount of time you save on event planning, menu costing and ordering and put an hourly dollar value on it, you will find that TPP costs probably half of that a year. I'm just a small business with around $300,000.00 in annual sales and it changed my life. There are also features that a larger catering business would find extremely helpful. I use some new feature regularly and I am always surprised at how much time it saves me.
Just do it! The cost will never be an issue because Total Party Planner pays for itself!

Great Tool for a Growing Catering Company

Total Party Planner has been an amazing tool for our small, but quickly growing catering company. The features are exactly what we need, and the program is extremely intuitive to use, which makes it a breeze to learn for our new event coordinators. TPP's customer service team is extremely responsive and will get back to you within hours (if not minutes!) of a report of any issues or questions. We highly recommend this software!

Review of Total Party Planner by Juliana's Catering

TPP has transformed our business productivity, professional appearance and efficiency.

Highly recommend TPP

Staying organized, keeping everything in one place
Proving a nice contract for the customer.
Ease of sales

Great tool to run our beverage services

Good Product with some limitations

Overall it was great. We got our money's worth. It was easy to use and efficient until it wasn't.