# Personal Chef: Requesting Reimbursement for Groceries with Multiple Clients



## G Roques (Aug 29, 2019)

As a personal chef with multiple clients, how do you manage requesting reimbursement from your clients for food bought at the store?

Do you *not* request reimbursement for the food bought at the store, and instead factor the cost of the food in to what you charge for your service?

It's difficult to create separate bills from the receipt of a single trip to the store when I may have bought food for myself and multiple different clients. Maybe there's an *app* to make this easier?

What strategies do you employ to make this more manageable?


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## Seoul Food (Sep 17, 2018)

Are you separating it to show food cost and labor cost to the client? I would just cost out your dishes ahead of time and factor in your labor and just bill it all together instead of itemizing it out.


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## G Roques (Aug 29, 2019)

Seoul Food said:


> I would just cost out your dishes ahead of time and factor in your labor and just bill it all together instead of itemizing it out.


That seems like a much easier approach. Do you know if this approach is common among other personal chefs? Or do you think there's value in showing the client food and labor cost separately?


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

When I create my contracts I always pass on the cost of the food as well as my time to the client. If I purchase products for me personally, I deduct them from the total of course. I do no itemize product just show total of product purchased.
It is not necessary to show the client what you bought.


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## Seoul Food (Sep 17, 2018)

G Roques said:


> That seems like a much easier approach. Do you know if this approach is common among other personal chefs? Or do you think there's value in showing the client food and labor cost separately?


I guess it could go either way. A client could see the food costs and your labor and say what a great deal or the opposite could happen and they could feel they are getting ripped off. Another example would be if you don't have your labor times locked in and you are just estimating because if you itemize the food and do a labor rate of $Y x Z hours for total cost it may be more money for you if you go over the estimated time versus if you do a flat rate labor quote. But you could also upset customers if you say if will be 10 hours and it really takes 15 and you bill the extra to them that they were not expecting. You could always do lump quotes if you really want to separate it like the food total cost will be X and the labor total cost will be Y bringing total event total to Z.


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

The client and you have entered into an agreement where you will provide a service and product and they client reimburses you for all of it. The client understands the scope of the agreement and that includes trust that you will purchase, cook and clean up. Providing a grocery receipt with the contract is no unheard of, but not always necessary.


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## NwChefM (Oct 5, 2019)

I also do my billing this way. I give my client an estimate of hours based on our agreed upon menu, and even an rough estimate of food cost. To answer your question in your post, have you considered separating out the stuff for each client? You can pay for them each separately to help keep track. That is how i do it, although an app sounds incredibly handy.


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## DuncanLucas (Feb 27, 2021)

Separate it, and it is easier to show the client the sum of all products and the amount of labor. It's easier to pay for the struggle itself from the beginning or count everything together and pay the total amount.


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## DuncanLucas (Feb 27, 2021)

DuncanLucas said:


> Separate it, and it is easier to show the client the sum of all products and the amount of labor. It's easier to pay for the struggle itself from the beginning or count everything together and pay the total amount. I have a personal chef. He lives and works for me. I can't go a day without restaurant food, and it's my weakness. Now, most wealthy people treat their staff in a civilized way, the risk of conflicts over mismatched personalities is less and less. It was recommended to me by a colleague of mine from work, he sent me the website londonstaffagency.co.uk, where I agreed with my cook what he would do and how he would do it.


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