The client changed the guest count 48 hours out. Now what?
A checklist for the phone call every caterer gets on a Thursday, and the contract clause that makes it survivable.
The short answer
When a guest count changes close to an event, work in this order: confirm the new number in writing, recalculate food against your guarantee clause, check whether staffing crosses a ratio threshold, check rentals and their change deadlines, then re-issue the BEO with a new revision number and notify every person holding the old one. Increases under 72 hours are usually absorbable on food but often break staffing and rentals; decreases after the guarantee date should not reduce the invoice, which is exactly why the guarantee clause exists.
It is Thursday afternoon. The event is Saturday. The client emails: 'Small change — we're at 175 now, not 140. Hope that's OK!'
It is a 25% increase two days out and they genuinely think it is a small change, because from where they are sitting it is one line in an email. The job is to work out what actually moves, in the right order, without either panicking or agreeing to something you cannot deliver.
The order of operations
1. Get it in writing, with a number
Reply and confirm the exact figure and that it is now the guaranteed count. Not 'about 175'. One number, in an email, from them. Everything downstream depends on this being real, and 'about' is how you end up cooking for 175 and billing for 140.
2. Check the clause before you check the kitchen
Look at your own guarantee date first, because it decides whether this is a favour or a variation. Past the guarantee date, an increase is a change order at the contracted per-head rate, and a decrease does not reduce the bill. Knowing that before you reply keeps the conversation calm and factual.
3. Food — usually the easiest part
Thirty-five extra covers on a buffet is often a shopping trip. On a plated menu with a protein you ordered to spec, it may not be — a portion-cut item ordered ten days ago cannot be conjured on Friday morning.
- Can your supplier still deliver, at what cut-off, and at what price?
- Does the increase break a case-size boundary, so you buy 20% more than you need?
- Is any item on the menu one you cannot get at short notice? That is the item to renegotiate now, not on Saturday.
4. Staffing — where it usually actually breaks
Guest counts move continuously. Staffing moves in steps. Going from 140 to 175 on a plated dinner at 1:10 means three more servers and probably another cook — and those people are being booked on Thursday for Saturday, which is the most expensive day to book anybody.
Check the thresholds, not the ratio: a bar that was fine with two bartenders at 140 needs a third at 175, and a room that needed one captain now needs a captain who is not also serving.
5. Rentals — the one with a hard deadline
Rental companies have change cut-offs and they are not flexible for you specifically. Thirty-five more covers is more china, glass, cutlery, linen, chairs, and possibly another table and a bigger tent. Call them before you finish the food maths, because their answer might change what is possible.
Also check the venue capacity. Sometimes the answer is that 175 does not fit in the room, and that is a conversation to have on Thursday rather than a discovery to make on Saturday.
6. Re-issue and re-distribute
New BEO, new revision number, new date on it. Then actively notify everyone holding the old one: chef, captain, bar lead, rental company, venue. A revised document that sits in your drive is not a revision, it is a private opinion.
What to charge
| Change | Reasonable response |
|---|---|
| Increase, before the guarantee date | Contracted per-head rate, no fee |
| Increase, after the guarantee date | Per-head rate plus documented incremental costs |
| Increase inside 72 hours | Per-head plus a late-change fee, if you can do it at all |
| Decrease, before guarantee | Rebill at the new number |
| Decrease, after guarantee | Bill the guaranteed number |
| Menu change after guarantee | Change fee, and only if the supply chain allows |
The incremental costs are real and you should name them, not bundle them into a vague surcharge: three servers at four hours, extra rentals with the rush fee, the difference between the contract price and the Friday price for the protein. A client shown four specific lines pays without argument. A client shown 'late change fee: $900' argues.
Stopping it happening next time
- A guarantee date that is in the proposal, not just the contract. Clients read proposals.
- A reminder five days before the guarantee date. Most late changes come from clients who did not know a deadline existed.
- Ask for a range at booking. 'Between 130 and 180' lets you spec rentals and staffing against the top of it from the start.
- Build a small buffer into plated events. Around 5% on the plate costs almost nothing and absorbs the walk-ins.
Why this is a software problem too
Everything above is one edit — the guest count — followed by twenty derived numbers that all have to move with it. Food quantities, prep sheet, pack list, staffing plan, rental order, invoice. Done by hand across six documents on a Thursday afternoon, one of them will be wrong, and it will be the one nobody re-reads.
That is the specific reason Apron Desk derives all of them from the event rather than storing them as separate documents: change the count in one place and the pack list, prep sheet, BEO and invoice are already right, and the version your captain opens on Saturday is the current one.
See it with your own events in it.
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