How Quotes Are Grouped & Ordered

Every line on a quote sits inside a section, a delivery time and a heading. This page explains what decides that order, where it comes from, and how it carries through to the customer’s quote, the PDF and every docket.

The Four Levels

A quote is built up in the same four levels everywhere it appears — on screen, on the PDF and on the dockets:

1. Section — Menu, Beverages, Staff, Equipment, Miscellaneous, Venue. A line’s section comes from its item’s category, so nothing ever moves between sections.
2. Delivery time — only on the two order types that have deliveries. Each section is split into one block per delivery time, earliest first. Other order types skip this level entirely.
3. Heading — a menu header, a category, or a rule header from a package. This is the level you can drag.
4. Items — the individual lines under that heading.

What Counts as a Heading

Puree calls each draggable heading block a menu group. It’s one of three things:

• Menu header — for example “On Arrival” or “Lunch”. Used whenever the items have one.
• Category — for example “Canapés” or “Salads”. Used when the items have no menu header.
• Rule header — an optional heading you type on a package card, for example “Choose 3 Canapés” or “Grazing Selection”. You can set one on a flexi choice rule or a Fixed items card. Everything from that card — the customer’s picks, or the fixed items it holds — gathers under this one heading, even when the items span several categories.

Think of every heading as a primary header and, sometimes, a subheader beneath it. Puree fills them from the headings a line actually has and leaves out the ones it doesn’t need, so a heading is never repeated:

• Primary header — the block’s top heading: the rule header if the line came from a card that has one, otherwise the menu header, otherwise the category.
• Subheader — a heading nested under the primary. It only appears under a rule header, and it’s the menu header — giving rule header → menu header → items.

So what’s used depends on what the line has:

The line has…	Primary header	Subheader
Rule header + menu header	Rule header	Menu header
Rule header, no menu header	Rule header	— none —
Menu header, no rule header	Menu header	— none —
Neither	Category	— none —

Only package cards can carry a rule header — so a subheader only ever appears on package lines. Items you add to a quote by hand (not from a package) never have a rule header, so they always land in the bottom two rows: they group under their menu header if they have one, otherwise under their category. This is the same model the Online Menus use.

A rule header block moves as a single unit. Anything nested under it — menu headers, individual picks — travels with it, so you can’t accidentally leave half a choice behind. Inside a rule header block, the pick’s own category isn’t repeated as a sub-heading, because the rule header already says what the block is.

Where the Starting Order Comes From

When a quote is first built, Puree has to choose an order for you. It uses two sources.

Package rules

On a package’s edit screen, every card in the rules section shares one numbered sequence — the Fixed Items card, each flexi rule card, and the Staff card. Each card has a drag handle and a position badge showing its place in the run.

Drag the cards into the order you want the package to read on a quote. Fixed items and flexi rules are interleaved, so a fixed card can sit between two choice rules — for example “Canapés on arrival” (fixed), then “Choose 2 Mains” (flexi), then “Petit Fours” (fixed).

When that package is added to a quote, its items land in exactly that sequence, so the quote opens reading the way you built the package. See our Packages help page for setting the rules up.

Your account defaults

Anything that didn’t come from a package — items you added by hand — falls back to your account-wide order: menu headers first, then categories, each in the order set in Settings. See our Changing Item Order help page.

Rearranging a Single Quote

Open the saved quote’s internal page from the Quotes list (not the editor’s View Full Order review modal) and hover over any heading — a menu header, a category or a rule header. A six-dot drag handle appears to its left. Drag the whole block up or down.

This is saved the moment you drop it, and it affects this quote only. Your account defaults and every other quote are untouched. Full detail in our Reordering Categories & Packages help page.

Once you’ve dragged a block on a quote, that choice wins from then on. Later changes to your account defaults, or to the package’s rule order, won’t shuffle it back.

How Delivery Times Affect Order

This level only applies to the two order types that carry deliveries:

• Delivery only — split by delivery time
• Staffed event with deliveries — split by delivery time
• Staffed event, Customer to collect and Venue hire only — not split. Each section is one continuous run of headings.

On those two types, delivery time wins over everything else. Each section is divided into one block per delivery time, listed earliest to latest, and the headings are arranged within each of those blocks.

• You can’t drag a heading from one delivery time into another. To move food to a different drop, change the item’s delivery — not its position.
• Each delivery keeps its own arrangement. The same category appearing at 8am and at noon can be ordered differently in each.
• Changing a delivery’s time keeps your arrangement. The whole block simply moves earlier or later in the quote; the headings inside stay as you left them.
• Deleting a delivery clears only that delivery’s arrangement. Your other delivery times are unaffected.
• Equipment is never split by delivery time — it’s listed once for the whole order.
• Menu, Beverages, Miscellaneous and Venue are split by delivery time.

When a package is added to an order that has deliveries, its items all land in the earliest delivery. Move individual lines to a later drop afterwards if you need to.

Item Order Within a Heading

Inside a heading, lines are ordered like this:

1. Package lines first, following the package’s rule sequence.
2. Within a rule, chosen items come before any “selection pending” placeholders still waiting on the customer.
3. Items added to the quote by hand sit at the bottom, in your category and item order.

Where the Order Shows Up

There’s one arrangement per quote and every surface reads it, so what you see on the order view is what everyone else gets:

• The customer’s quote page and any bespoke quote template
• The quote PDF
• The chef docket, driver docket and consolidated docket
• The event brief

Drag a block on the quote and it moves on all of them. The dockets add their own operational grouping on top — the driver docket always leads with delivery time, for instance — but the headings inside follow your arrangement.

One deliberate difference: the chef docket leaves out “selection pending” placeholders, because there’s no dish to prepare yet. It prints a warning above the chef instructions instead, so the kitchen knows a choice is still outstanding.

Good to Know

• Existing quotes retain saved lines, but some display settings remain shared. Rule-header text and package-rule positions can be read from the current package records. Editing or deleting those records can affect existing quote headings or within-group ordering. Check an existing quote before relying on a catalogue change as future-only.
• A saved per-quote group arrangement takes precedence for those groups. This does not freeze every rule heading or the order of individual lines within a group.
• The Staff card’s position sets where staff sit in the package’s card sequence. Staff still appear in their own Staff section on the quote.
• A package can have several rule headers — on its choice rules and its Fixed items cards. Each choice rule keeps its own remaining-choices count, so picking a dessert never eats into the mains.
• Drag handles stay hidden until you hover, and are only available on a larger screen. Your customer never sees them.

Remove an unwanted subheading

A subheading under a package rule comes from the item’s Menu header. To keep the rule heading but remove that extra level, clear the menu header on the relevant quote lines and save the quote. To change the reusable package setup, clear the menu-header assignment in its item picker and save the package; review existing quotes separately.

To use only menu headers, leave the package card’s Rule header blank. With neither a rule header nor a menu header, the category becomes the heading. There is no promise of a completely heading-free section in this layout.

The Packages list is a summary of package charges. Included items are rendered in their Menu, Beverages or other sections using the heading rules above; they do not automatically sit immediately beneath each package’s price row.