Bundles

Bundle, package, or options?

These three sit close together in the app and they all put lines on a quote, so it is worth being clear about which question each one answers.

The quickest test is what the kitchen has to do. If nothing new gets made, it is Options or Includes: white or wholemeal bread, or the three components of a Devonshire tea written as text. If several real catalogue items get made, packed and costed but the customer buys one thing at one price, it is a bundle. If you are selling a whole event priced per head, with staff and hire alongside the food, it is a package.

They also combine. A package can offer a bundle inside a choice rule, and a bundle's contents can carry their own options. Full detail on the first two is on our Item Options help page and our Packages help page.

Setting one up

Open the item and tick This item is a bundle, directly under the item name. Then choose what to call each one: bundle, platter, lunch box, hamper, box, pack, tray, bag or set. That word is used on kitchen documents, so a content prints as "Ham sandwich (part of 12 x Lunch Box platters)".

The Options & Includes section becomes a contents list. Search for each catalogue item, set how many go into one of the parent with the plus and minus buttons, and click Add item for the next. A platter holding six sandwiches carries 6, so one platter yields six and three yield eighteen.

Bundles are not only for food. The switch is on menu, beverage, equipment and miscellaneous items, so a bar kit and a drinks pack work exactly like a lunch box. Venue items are the exception, because a venue line is a booking rather than something you assemble. Contents can cross those groups too: a lunch box can hold a sandwich and a can of drink.

What the switch changes

• Dietary codes and allergens move to the contents. The pickers disappear from the bundle and anything already on it is cleared, because a platter's codes come from what is in it. Tagging the wrapper as well would be a second answer that can disagree with the sandwiches.
• The supplier is cleared. A bundle is assembled from your own catalogue rather than bought in. Its contents keep their own suppliers, so supplier orders still go out correctly.
• Include in chef & driver docket is unticked once, then left to you. The kitchen should prep the contents, not a line called the platter. The bundle still prints on the driver docket, because that setting hides the assembly from the kitchen, not the box from the van. (It is a menu item setting, so an equipment or beverage bundle has nothing to untick.)
• Untick the switch and the links drop away, but the wording stays: the contents remain as plain Includes text. Nothing on your quotes disappears.

What the customer sees

One priced line. The bundle's description sits under the name, then the contents follow as indented sub-lines, quantified at the line's own total ("12x Ham sandwich"). The contents are not priced, because the bundle's price covers them. If a content carries a chosen option with a surcharge, gluten free bread for instance, that adds to the bundle line and shows straight after the option name.

Untick Show quantity in customer quote on the line and both the parent count and the content counts hide, so the customer cannot read the number off the contents. Guest menus list the bundle once and the contents by name only, with dietary codes and allergens still printed.

What your team sees

• The chef docket lists the contents as real dishes, each tagged with the parent so the chef can see why eighteen muffins are on the list. Recipes, food cost and the shopping list all work off the contents, so a bundle is never flagged as a dish without a recipe.
• Packing documents follow the quote. The driver docket, run sheets and stickers list the bundle as one line with its contents underneath, because the driver is packing boxes rather than plating dishes. Stickers count one per box, not one per sandwich.
• Count sheets list the contents. On the equipment and beverage dockets, a bar kit's glasses are the rows, tagged "part of 2 x Bar Kit sets". The kit itself is not counted, because there is nothing on a shelf to count out and count back in.
• Stock warnings look inside. If you record a stock level on an equipment item, quoting two bar kits that each hold twelve glasses warns against the glasses, counting what other orders that day already claim.

Things worth knowing

• Contents are one level deep. An item already inside a bundle cannot itself be a bundle, and the tickbox tells you which platters it sits in.
• Contents come from the catalogue, not the quote. You cannot change a content's quantity on one order. Change it on the item and it applies everywhere from then on. Delete the bundle line and its contents go with it.
• A content cannot be deactivated while a live bundle includes it. Take it out of the bundle first.
• Online, a bundle behaves like any other item. Its contents show underneath it and a content's own choices are offered, so the customer can pick them. Availability follows the bundle, so set the dates, days and cutoffs there rather than on the contents.
• Bundles show a badge on the items list, with a Bundles filter next to the category pills on each item group that has them.

For worked examples of all four ideas side by side, see our article Options, Includes, Bundles and Packages: Which One Do You Mean?.