Frequently Asked Questions
If your question is not answered below feel free to contact us.
General / Top Questions
1. What exactly is PurpleSalad?
PurpleSalad is a web application helping professional chefs and hobbyist cooks to manage their recipes, menus, cookbooks and customers. It scales recipes, calculates costs and nutrition values, convert units and suggests recipes. Personal chefs can also generate their chef website to promote their personal chef services.
2. Do I need to install anything?
You only need a web browser to use PurpleSalad. There are no software programs or browser plugins that you need to install.
3. Why sign up as a charter member?
Charter members will be given longer trial period of 3 months. As a charter member you will be given priority access to new features. You will also to lock in lower usage fees as long as you remain our customer.
4. Can I export my data?
Yes, anytime.
5. What browsers does it work with?
All modern browsers - IE 7+, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari and more.
6. What if I have a question not answered here?
You can always contact us directly.
Account & Billing
1. Can I try PurpleSalad for free?
Yes, there is 30 days free trial available for everyone. If you sign up as a charter member in the prelaunch period, you will be entitled for the 3 months free trial.
2. Can I upgrade/downgrade any time?
Yes, even in the middle of the billing cycle. If you upgrade the new features will become immediately available but you'll be charged the new price only from the next billing period.
3. What will happen with my data if I downgrade?
No data will be lost. Even if data becomes inaccessible because it's not included in the downgraded package, it's still there in our database and will be accessible for you again if you upgrade back to the better plan.
4. What is your refund policy
There is 30 days or 90 days free trial with full features included. Because of this there will be no refunds of payment that are already made.
5. Are there any hidden fees?
No, and never will.
Recipes
1. How do I add a recipe?
Go to My Recipes and click "add". In the popup that opens choose whether you want to enter the recipe in a form, paste it as text (the program can try to conver it), or import recipes.
2. Can I import recipes?
Yes, of course.
3. Can I paste a recipe as text?
Yes. The program will then try to break the recipe in the proper format if you wish, but if it can't, or you don't want to, you can just keep it as text.
4. What is recipe scalling?
It's a way to calculate the amount of foodstuffs you need to prepare any number of servings.
5. How to calculate recipe cost?
If you have entered costs for the food products the program will automatically calculate the cost of each recipe.
6. How can I categorize my recipes?
Just select categories next to your recipe, or add tags. No categories yet? Create them through the Categories page or just enable the default category set.
Menus and Cookbooks
1. How can I organize my menus and cookbooks?
Cookbooks are just another way to organize your recipes. You can create any of them in My Cookbooks page and assign recipes or whole recipe categories to them. Menus can belong to cookbooks or not, it's up to you.
2. How can I create custom menus?
Go to My Menus page and create as manu menus as you wish.
Client Management For Personal Chefs
1. How can I organize my clients contact data?
Go to My Clients page. Search, sort, add, edit, delete clients with few clicks.
2. Can my clients fill their assessments, allergy and diet preferences?
Yes, you can create logins for your clients so they can enter their preferences and even fill assessments through your chef site.
3. How to arrange my cooking dates and events?
Go to My Calendar and use the events scheduler. Optionally you can set to receive email reminders any number of days before an important event.
Chef Site
1. What is a chef site and why do I need one?
The chef site is available for users with Chef account. It's a simple, focused and very efficiend website presenting your personal chef services, allowing customers to contact you, to find out about your services, to fill assessments, and to get in touch with you.
2. How can I promote my chef site?
There are easy tools to share it on Facebook, Twtitter and other social networks. You can print it on your visit card, place it in your email signature, share it on forums and blogs. Please do not spam with your chef site, spamming may result in account termination.
3. How to publish content on my chef site?
Your chef site allows you to edit the content on several pre-defined pages, and add any numbers of additional pages. To add a page, just go to My Chef Site -> Pages and click Add.
4. How to publish images on my chef site?
Your Chef site supports an image gallery. You can connect it to a Twitter or Picasa web album or just upload photos via the Upload Photos link.
5. How to customize my chef site design?
If you are familiar with web design you can copy the default theme and customize the HTML and CSS code in any way you wish. We offer also custom design service if you are looking for high quality unique design of your chef site.
