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 sent a lot of paperwork to a lot of office managers over the years, and I have learned that the lunch is only finished when the invoice 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. Ask for all three with the quote and the expense report closes itself.

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. If a small order went through DoorDash during kitchen hours, the receipt is in the app and in your email, and that is usually enough for an expense report. The how to order page explains when a small order goes that route and when a quote is faster.
• 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. This is every office lunch, meeting and Tamale Day I deliver.
• 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 invoice, not just the receipt. 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 mine include, and what you should expect from any caterer who wants to be paid on time.

1. The vendor’s legal name and address. Maggie’s Tamales & Catering, 2100 N Greenville Ave, Ste 202, Richardson, TX 75082. 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, exactly as they appeared on the quote. Whatever I confirmed with the quote is what you will see on the invoice, with no surprises between the two.
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. I add it to every office invoice when the office manager tells me what the lunch was for, which is one reason I ask.

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, that it is routine, and that the answer is yes.

Ask for the W-9 when you request the quote, and it comes back with the paperwork. Then your vendor setup is done before the food arrives, and the first invoice 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.

The clean order is this: quote first, PO second, delivery third, invoice fourth. Request the quote with the headcount and the date. I price it the same business day and send it back as a written quote. Your company issues a PO against that quote, if it uses POs, and you send me the number. The food is delivered. The invoice goes out matching the quote, with the PO number on it, and it clears.

If your company does not use purchase orders, the quote still matters, because it is what accounting compares the invoice against. How to write a catering request shows what to put in the first message so the quote is right the first time, and catering deposits and payment covers what happens between the quote and the invoice for larger orders. For Maggie’s, any deposit or payment terms are confirmed with the quote, not guessed at from a blog post.

Reading a tamale lunch invoice line by line

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

Every line can be checked with a calculator. Thirty-six times five is $180. Twenty-four times five is $120. Sixty tamales at $5 each is $300. Anything beyond the food appears exactly the way it did on the quote. The delivery date, the PO number and a line that says staff lunch sit at the top, 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 recurring delivery, and the menu has the per-plate and per-dozen prices the invoice 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.

One invoice a month

For recurring monthly delivery, which we call Tamale Day, you get one invoice, on a schedule, with 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 looks forward to the invoice, too, because it never changes shape.

Several departments, several locations

If sales and engineering split the lunch, tell me before delivery and I will issue two invoices, or one invoice with the split shown, whichever your accounting prefers. If the same lunch goes to your Richardson office and your Plano office on the same day, each location can get its own invoice with its own ship-to, 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 I can do is put the occasion on the invoice so the coding takes ten seconds instead of an email thread, and keep every lunch itemized so nothing has to be guessed at later.

The office manager’s checklist

• Headcount, date, delivery window, 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, sent before delivery.
• W-9 and any vendor forms requested with the quote, before the first order.
• The occasion, in four words or fewer, for the invoice.
• Where the invoice should go, whether that is you, a shared AP inbox, or both.

Send that with your first request and I can honestly say 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?

Tell me the date, the headcount, and whether your company needs a PO, a W-9 or a vendor form, and I will send back a menu, a written quote and every document accounting is going to ask for, usually the same business day. Maggie’s delivers office lunches hot and labeled across Richardson, Plano and the northern suburbs, and the invoice arrives itemized and matching the quote. Request an office catering quote 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 with the quote and it comes back with the paperwork.

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

Yes, and that is the right order of operations. Request the quote with the headcount and the date, receive the written quote, have your company issue a PO against it, and send me the number. The invoice will carry the PO and match the quote line for line, so accounts payable can approve it without creating a PO after the fact.

Can catering be billed to two departments or two offices?

Yes. Tell me before delivery how the cost should be split and I will issue two invoices, or one invoice with the split shown, whichever your accounting prefers. For the same lunch going to two locations on the same day, each office can have its own invoice with its own ship-to address, so the expense lands in the right cost center without anyone reallocating it later.

Do recurring office lunches come with one invoice or many?

One invoice a month for recurring delivery, in the same format every time, with the delivery date, the itemized dozens, any tax or delivery charge as quoted, and your PO. Many companies issue a blanket PO for the year. The office manager confirms the headcount a few days before each delivery, and the invoice adjusts to the dozens actually delivered that month.