Free Catering Delivery Note Template & Generator
A catering delivery note records what reached the venue inside the delivery window and in what state: portion counts against the guaranteed cover count, beverage and service ware quantities, the hot-hold or cold-hold readings taken on arrival, and which items are rentals going back on your truck rather than goods being sold. It names the event, the room, the delivery window and the person at the venue who signed, because after service nobody can recount anything.
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| Description | Qty |
|---|---|
| Prepared meal trays | 18 |
| Beverage cases | 8 |
| Returnable chafing sets | 10 |
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Use-case checklist
What to include in a catering delivery note
Catering is the one delivery you can never audit afterwards. Once service starts, the food is eaten and the count is gone, so a dispute about whether 85 or 88 covers arrived has no evidence on either side unless it was written at 10:58 a.m. Returnables are where the money actually leaks: six chafers and two dispensers get stacked with the venue's own equipment, your driver picks up four, and two months later you are billing a client for replacements you may well have back in the warehouse. The delivery window matters too, because a client who signed for a drop at 10:58 for a noon service cannot later claim the food arrived during the toast. Temperature readings on arrival, taken against your own food-safety plan, are the only record that the handoff was in spec when it left your control.
- client, event, venue, and delivery window
- order and delivery-note reference
- food, beverage, and rental quantities
- condition, temperature, and shortage notes
- returnable items, receiver, and signature
Example starting lines
| Description | Qty |
|---|---|
| Prepared meal trays | 18 |
| Beverage cases | 8 |
| Returnable chafing sets | 10 |
Complete it cleanly
Reference event and invoice or order, list delivered menu packages, beverages, rentals, and consumables, record temperature or condition exceptions when relevant, and mark returnable items clearly.
How to make a catering delivery note in 6 steps
Open the delivery note generator
Start from this page so the delivery note opens with fields and sample lines already set up for caterers and event rental teams. No account is needed to create or preview.
Enter both parties
Add your business name, address and contact details, then the customer name and address exactly as they should appear on the record.
Add the catering lines
Replace each sample line with the real work or goods. Make sure the document shows client, event, venue, and delivery window, order and delivery-note reference, food, beverage, and rental quantities.
Check the figures
Totals calculate as you type. Confirm quantities, rates, any tax line and the final total against your own records before you send anything.
Set the reference and dates
Give the delivery note a unique number and the correct date so it can be traced later and matched to related documents.
Review and download the PDF
Reference event and invoice or order, list delivered menu packages, beverages, rentals, and consumables, record temperature or condition exceptions when relevant, and mark returnable items clearly. Preview is free; a PDF download costs $4.99, or is included with Unlimited.
Worked example
A corporate lunch drop at a venue, with rentals going back the same day
Vantry Kitchen & Events delivers order EV-2208 for Northbay Legal Partners to the Kelsick Conference Center, Room 2B, on May 21, 2026 for a noon service. The guarantee was raised from 85 to 88 covers on May 18. One salad bowl did not make the van, and the chafers are rentals due back at 3:00 p.m.
- Event order EV-2208, guaranteed count raised from 85 on May 18, 2026
- 88 covers
- Hot entree package at $24.50 per cover, delivered in six full pans
- 88 / $2,156.00
- Garden salad bowl at $46.00, serves 20; one bowl short on the van, written up before the driver left
- 4 of 5 / $184.00
- Beverage: two 3-gal iced tea dispensers at $38.00, four cases bottled water at $18.00
- $148.00
- Disposable service ware at $1.35 per cover
- 88 / $118.80
- Chafer rental with fuel at $14.00 per set, returnable, pickup booked for 3:00 p.m. May 21
- 6 sets / $84.00
- Hot-hold readings taken across all six pans at 10:52 a.m., logged on both copies
- 152 to 158 F
- Delivery fee, Kelsick Conference Center, freight elevator to Room 2B
- $95.00
- Signed by banquet captain L. Ferro at 10:58 a.m., inside the 10:30 to 11:00 window; invoiced on delivered counts
- $2,785.80
The salad bowl is billed at four, not five, because the note records what arrived rather than what was ordered. The recurring mistake is listing rentals in the same block as food, so the venue reads chafers as purchased and your driver has nothing itemized to check at pickup.
When this document is the right choice
Use this delivery note to record which goods were delivered and accepted. A delivery note tracks items and quantities, normally without prices. The invoice handles payment; the signed delivery note supports quantity and condition checks.
Frequently asked questions
The guarantee was 85 and we delivered 88 covers. Which number goes on the delivery note?
Both, on separate lines. Write the guaranteed count with the date it was set, then the covers actually delivered, because the contract usually prices off the guarantee while the note records the drop. In the example the guarantee moved to 88 on May 18 and 88 arrived, so they agree and the invoice is uncontroversial. When they do not agree, showing both is what lets the client's finance team see whether they are paying for a late increase they approved or for food nobody asked for.
Should the delivery note carry the hot-hold temperatures we took at the venue?
If your kitchen takes them, put them on the note. A reading with a time next to it is the only record that the food was in spec when it passed to the venue, and it also shows the banquet staff what state they are taking over. Record the reading, the time and how many pans you probed. Thresholds and record-keeping are set by your own food-safety plan and your local health authority, so follow those rather than a number you saw on a template.
How do we keep rented chafers and dispensers from disappearing at the venue?
Give returnables their own block on the note, itemized and counted, with the scheduled pickup time on the same line. Six chafer sets and two beverage dispensers with a 3:00 p.m. pickup is checkable; equipment as needed is not. Have the venue signer acknowledge that block specifically, and have your driver count against the same list at pickup so a shortage is identified the same day, while the banquet team can still find the missing piece in a back hallway.
The banquet captain signs, but our client is nowhere near the venue. What does that signature actually cover?
Custody, not approval. The captain is confirming that six pans, 88 covers of service ware and six chafer sets came through the freight elevator into Room 2B. He has no idea what Northbay Legal agreed to buy. So carry two names on the note, the venue person who took the food and the client contact the event belongs to, and get the PDF to that client contact the same morning. A set of counts the client first sees attached to an invoice two weeks later is a set of counts that gets re-argued long after the food is gone.
Five of the 88 covers are gluten-free plates. Should the note break those out?
Always, with their own count and their own line, even though they sit inside the same entree price for billing. Special-diet covers are the one thing at a drop that the venue cannot fix after you have driven away, and a pan labeled only entree gets put on the line with everything else. Write the count, how the plates are marked, and the name of the person at the venue you physically handed them to, then have that person sign that line specifically. How the food is packed and labeled follows your own allergen procedures, so work from those rather than from a template.
More delivery note templates
Start with the closest business workflow and adjust the details.