Putting your cut sheet online

What to include and what to leave off. A good online cut sheet asks only the decisions that change how you cut or what you charge, grouped by primal, with your standard cut as a one-tap option. Everything else on your paper sheet is either a note for your cutting room or a question you can answer once for everyone.

Updated October 14, 2026.

Start from the decisions, not the paper

Copying your paper sheet line for line is the quickest way to get an online sheet that's hard to fill out on a phone. Go through it and sort each line into one of three piles: a choice the customer makes, a fixed shop policy, or something only your cutters need.

Only the first pile becomes questions. Shop policy goes in a short paragraph at the top. Cutting-room notes stay in the cutting room.

Beef: what to ask, by primal

Group beef questions by primal, in the order the carcass is broken down. Customers move through it in sections, and the printed order reads the same way your cutters work.

Chuck

Roasts or ground. If roasts, what size, like 2 to 3 lb or 3 to 4 lb.

Rib

Ribeye steaks or a standing rib roast. Bone-in or boneless, thickness, steaks per package.

Short loin

T-bones and porterhouses, or NY strips and filets cut separately. Thickness and steaks per package.

Sirloin

Sirloin steaks or roasts, and whether to keep the tri-tip.

Round

Round steaks, roasts, cube steak, or ground. Jerky meat if you offer it.

Brisket, plate and flank

Keep the brisket whole, halved or ground. Short ribs kept or ground. Flank and skirt kept or ground.

Ground beef and extras

Package size (1 or 2 lb), patties, soup bones, and which organs and oxtail to keep.

Pork: what to ask, by primal

Hogs have fewer choices, but the cure-or-fresh decisions on belly and ham matter more because they change the price and the turnaround.

Shoulder

Butt roasts, shoulder steaks, or sausage. Roast size.

Loin

Chops or roasts. Bone-in or boneless, chop thickness and chops per package.

Belly

Cured and smoked bacon, or fresh side. Slice thickness if you offer a choice.

Ham

Cured and smoked, fresh roasts, or ground into sausage. Whole, halved or sliced.

Sausage and extras

Sausage type and flavor, links or bulk, package size. Hocks, jowl and fat kept or not.

Offer a standard cut

Put a "shop standard" option at the top of the sheet, or at the top of each section. A first-time customer who doesn't know a chuck from a round can take your usual cuts in one step instead of guessing. Describe what the standard is in a sentence, like "1 inch steaks, 2 per package, 3 to 4 lb roasts, the rest ground in 1 lb packages", so the customer knows what they're agreeing to.

Explain the jargon where it's used

Most callbacks start with a word the customer didn't know. Put a one-line definition next to the question that uses it. These are the terms that come up most:

Hanging weight

The carcass weight after slaughter, before cutting. Most per-pound charges are based on it.

Take-home weight

The packaged meat that goes home. Smaller than hanging weight because of bone, fat trim and moisture loss.

Primal

One of the large sections the carcass is broken into, like the chuck, rib or loin.

T-bone vs. NY strip and filet

Both come from the same part of the loin. Cutting T-bones means no separate strips or filets, and the other way round.

Bone-in vs. boneless

Bone-in keeps the bone in the steak or chop. Boneless means less weight in bone and more ground or trim.

Cube steak

Round steak run through a tenderizer. Takes meat that would otherwise be roasts or ground.

Cured and smoked

Bacon and ham that are brined and smoked, as opposed to fresh pork that is cooked like any other cut.

State minimums next to the product

If sausage, brats or patties have a minimum batch, show it next to the choice, like "10 lb minimum per flavor". A minimum the customer finds out about at pickup is an argument. One printed beside the checkbox is just part of the order.

Show prices as they choose

Put the price beside each choice that carries one, and keep a running total in view. Per-pound charges can't be final until the animal is weighed, so show the rate and say it will be finalized at weigh-in. For help deciding how to lay out your rates, see how to price custom processing.

Collect what you need to reach them

Every online sheet should collect:

• Name, phone number and email.
• The drop-off or slaughter date the order is for.
• How you'll identify their animal, if that matters in your shop.
• A free-text notes field for anything the questions don't cover.

Make phone and email required. You'll need one of them when the beef is ready, and a missing number on a paper sheet is a hook in your cooler nobody is coming for.

Halves need their own sheets

When two customers split a beef, give each half its own cut sheet, deposit and bill. Each half is one side of the carcass, so each customer can make their own choices. Weigh the carcass once and price each half on its share of the hanging weight. Decide how per-animal fees like slaughter and disposal split between the two, and say so on the sheet.

Keep the two orders linked to the same animal so nobody has to match them up by name on the cooler floor.

What to leave off

• Options you don't really offer, or only offer on request.
• Questions every customer answers the same way.
• Choices that only make sense to your cutters.
• A grand total presented as final before the animal is weighed.

Where general form builders fall short

General online form builders are good at collecting choices, required fields and contact details, and some can add up fixed prices. A cut sheet asks for more than that. Most form builders can't:

• Price a per-pound charge on a weight you won't know until after slaughter.
• Re-price the whole order when you enter the hanging weight.
• Track a deposit and a balance against each order.
• Split one animal into two linked orders with their own bills.
• Produce a printable cut sheet and bill from the same order.

If your pricing is a single fixed price per animal, a form builder may be enough. If you charge by the pound, you'll end up doing that math by hand anyway.

A printable template, and the online version

If you want a starting point on paper, use our free printable cut sheet template. Print it for the counter, or use it to plan the questions for your online sheet.

When you're ready to take orders online, Cut Sheet Helper puts your own sheet and prices on a link you send customers. They choose on their phone and see the price as they go. You enter the hanging weight once, and the order re-prices, with deposits, a printable sheet and bills in one place. We set up your sheet from your current one as part of the subscription.