An employee pre-orders their meal and pays their share—via payroll deduction, from a digital account balance, or using another digital payment method. The remainder—the subsidy—is covered by their company. For the caterer, this means in all these cases: Only the already subsidized, reduced price is automatically recorded as revenue. The caterer must invoice the company separately for the subsidy itself—and needs a precise breakdown of when each subsidy was recorded. Many point-of-sale and cafeteria systems cannot provide this breakdown.
Why isn't the transaction price alone sufficient for this?
Many systems store only the final price already billed for each order, not the subsidy amount itself. Without this breakdown, it is impossible at the end of the month to accurately determine which employee received which subsidy and when, or what the total subsidy per company was. The caterer must either painstakingly reconstruct the figures by hand or risk being left to cover part of the costs.
What does the caterer need to prepare an accurate invoice?
With " sizzly ," the subsidy remains visible as a separate line item, not just as a price that has already been applied. The reports can be filtered flexibly:
- per order
- per employee
- per period
- per menu line
- per grant group
- per location
- per organization
The list price and the subsidized price remain visible side by side, rather than being included in the final price.
What does it mean when a caterer serves multiple client companies?
Many caterers serve not just one company, but several client companies or schools at the same time—often with different subsidy structures and amounts. With sizzly , each order is clearly assigned to its respective client company, allowing subsidies to be neatly separated by company instead of having to sort them out retroactively from a shared transaction list. Each client company thus receives its own accurate invoice—without the subsidies from different clients getting mixed up.
Different subsidy amounts for each employee group
Not every employee group receives the same subsidy—trainees, locations, or departments may be subsidized differently. Using subsidy groups, the company determines which group receives how much in subsidies, and sizzly automatically records which subsidy group received which amount and when—instead of having to assign this information manually afterward. Subsidies and subsidy rules can be flexibly configured in sizzly so that they comply with legal and tax requirements for different federal states or countries; the correct application of and compliance with the respective rules is the responsibility of the company or organization itself.
Standardized or Customized: What the Billing Template Looks Like
In addition to the standard filters by order, employee, time period, menu line, or subsidy group, a custom reporting template can also be created for a specific company or caterer if needed—for example, if a client company requires a specific format for its own accounting. This way, the caterer does not have to manually reformat the numbers afterward to meet the client’s requirements but receives them directly in the correct format.
What does this mean for the company or school providing the grant?
This provides the company or school granting the subsidy with a transparent accounting record instead of having to follow up with the caterer—each subsidy can be assigned to a specific time period and, where applicable, to a group of employees or even a specific employee.
sizzly compared to systems that use only discounted prices
A factor that is often the deciding factor when choosing a system
It is precisely this gap that has, on multiple occasions in the past, been the deciding factor in catering companies choosing the “ sizzly ” system over other options when selecting a new cafeteria system: If a system’s reporting capabilities are insufficient to accurately allocate subsidies to individual companies, time periods, or employees, accurate billing becomes a tedious manual process—or may not even be possible in the end.
FAQ Grant Settlement
The caterer bills the subsidizing company for the subsidy, since—regardless of whether payment is made via payroll deduction, credit, or another digital payment method—the caterer only recognizes the subsidized price as revenue.
No—without listing the grant amount as a separate line item, it will be impossible to determine later how much in grants a company actually received per employee or per time period.
Yes, the reports can be filtered by menu line and subsidy group, among other criteria. In addition, custom reports or report templates can be saved for a specific company or caterer if a fixed billing format is required.
Grants and grant rules can be flexibly configured in sizzly so that they can be set up in a legally and tax-compliant manner for different federal states or states; the company or organization itself is responsible for the correct application of and compliance with the respective rules.
Conclusion
As soon as a company subsidizes the cost of meals—regardless of whether the employee’s share is paid via payroll deduction, a credit balance, or another digital payment method—the subsidy is not a discount for the caterer but a separate line item on the invoice. A detailed, filterable subsidy report provides caterers with the figures they need to accurately bill each individual company—and gives the company the transparency it expects in return.