Banquet food cost that never tied to the BEO

Problem

Before: Sales sold packages. Kitchen executed generous interpretation. Nobody reconciled what left the walk-in against what the contract allowed. Big weddings looked great in photos. Margin was a guess until accounting asked why protein spend jumped in a soft month. What was broken: BEO changes hit email. Prep did not always reload the attachment. "Extra fifty guests" became a heroic kitchen story instead of a re-priced line item. Staff meal was the pressure valve. It had no limit, so it hid waste.

System built

Final BEO lived in one folder with a version number. Prep printed from that version. If sales updates after print, they walk to the kitchen and initial the delta. Leftover high-value items logged out to staff meal with a scale or a count sheet. Still feed the team. Stop funding free groceries for the neighborhood. Weekly banquet huddle: sales, chef, finance. Twenty minutes. Three numbers everyone agreed to trust.

Outcome

Banquet margin stopped being a post-mortem every quarter. Sales could still say yes to clients. Kitchen could say "here is what that costs" with a straight face. The team still ate well. They stopped eating the margin.