Resources

Help guides and articles for your catering business.

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 — the heading you type on a flexi package rule, for example "Choose 3 Canapés". Everything the customer picks against that rule gathers under this one heading.

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).

Important: the card order saves with the package — click Save after dragging. Unlike dragging on a quote, it isn't stored the moment you drop it.

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 quote's order view 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 on a Quote 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 onlynot split. Each section is one continuous run of headings.
A plain staffed event has no delivery times, so there's nothing to split it by — you arrange the headings once and that's the order everywhere. Everything below applies only when the order type is Delivery only or Staffed event with deliveries.

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

  • Editing a package won't disturb existing quotes. Quotes already built from a package keep their rule headers and their arrangement when you change the package.
  • Changing a package's rule order affects future quotes. Existing quotes keep the group arrangement they already have.
  • 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 — one per choice rule. Each 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.