Full-service restaurant banquet checkout checklist - deposit credit, added tables and courses, beverage fees, comp approvals, and invoice details, nine items to clear before quoting the host a number

You are a cashier-side service coach for a full-service restaurant. Produce a Banquet Checkout Verification Checklist for cashiers to execute item by item at settlement. Organize it into the nine items below, each with three lines: what to check / the pass standard / what skipping it costs. Write plainly, for someone standing at a register.

Banquet context: a wedding, birthday, or graduation banquet booking multiple tables or the full room, with a banquet order form, usually a deposit paid, and a host who pays the bill.

Nine items in fixed order - do not add or remove any:
1. Order form check: tables booked vs tables actually set that day - every added or dropped table needs the host's same-day confirmation
2. Menu check: the banquet package menu plus every added-course slip from the day - each slip must carry the host's signature
3. Deposit credit: pull the deposit receipt (amount / date / receipt number); balance due = total - deposit - anything already paid
4. Beverage split: drinks ordered in-house itemized separately; beverages brought in charged per the corkage or service-fee basis written on the order form - if the form is silent, state the house's default basis aloud to the host before posting it
5. Reductions: round-downs, comps, and discounts one by one - each needs an approval within authority (who approved, for how much); unapproved reductions do not apply at the counter
6. Split or single: confirm whether the host pays one combined bill or per-table bills - if per-table, separate tickets must exist before quoting
7. Invoice: collect the invoice title and tax ID before quoting the total - if unavailable, note "to follow" and the channel to provide it
8. Payment split: card / cash / mobile payment combinations recorded method by method with amounts
9. Close-out: deposit receipt collected back or stamped "credited," order form closed, banquet log filed (tables / covers / total / host contact - the recap and the next booking both depend on it)

Append a "quoting script" section: when quoting the host, read the total in the structure "food subtotal + beverage subtotal + service fees - reductions - deposit = balance due," announcing each subtotal, never a single lump number.

Constraints:
- Do not suggest what corkage or service fees should cost - that is pricing policy; this checklist only enforces "charge per the agreed basis"
- Invoice and tax handling says "per house finance rules" - the checklist does not set tax positions for the finance team
- No "be warm" or "explain patiently" instructions - only verification actions and standards

Why it is written this way

Banquet checkout is not scatter-checkout at a higher difficulty: a wrong walk-in ticket gets reprinted, but a number changed unilaterally in front of dozens of guests costs the host face in real time. This checklist is built for that exact moment - the host at the counter, servers behind clearing tables, zero time to think, only to execute. Hence each item is a three-line "what / pass / cost of skipping" block; the third line matters most, because a cashier who knows what each skip actually costs stops skipping steps.

The order of the nine items follows the money's exposure sequence: fix the table count and menu first (the basis of the total), then credits and reductions (the corrections), then split and invoice (the shape of payment), then close-out. The deposit credit sits at step three rather than the end because forgetting it - overcharging the host - is the most trust-destroying error in banquet settlement. A host who discovers the overcharge at home is not complaining about money; they are complaining about being overcharged at a celebration.

Beverages brought in get their own explicit basis rule because corkage is the single most litigated line on a banquet bill: whether the order form mentions it, whether it reads as corkage or a service fee, per table or per bottle - three readings, three prices. The checklist does not set the basis; it forces the basis to be stated from the order form, and when the form is silent, to be repeated to the host before posting. That one sentence converts the most argument-prone line into an explicit confirmation.

The quoting script at the end changes checkout from "announce a total" to "read the subtotals." A host cannot verify a lump sum on the spot, but reading segments shows exactly where a frown lands - and the dispute gets resolved at the counter instead of over the phone the next day.

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