Inventory health findings

After every inventory count, Rinvy runs a health check. The check compares what you counted with what Rinvy expected to see from the previous count, the receipts and waste logged since, and each product's usage rate. When the numbers don't line up, Rinvy flags the product, names the likely cause and shows the dollars at stake.

What it looks for

Each finding covers one product and one likely explanation:

Missing receipt? — there's meaningfully more on the shelf than the numbers can explain, and no delivery was logged in the window. The most common cause: a delivery that arrived but never made it into Rinvy — logging it brings the books back in line with the shelf.
Unlogged waste? — stock dropped further than receipts and normal usage explain, with nothing in the waste log. Was there spoilage or a dropped case nobody recorded?
Count error? — stock came in higher than expected even though deliveries were logged. The previous count may have been low, or a delivery was logged short.
Usage shift — consumption ran ahead of its usual pace. Not an error, but worth knowing about.

Every finding shows the estimated dollar impact and the numbers behind it (expected vs. counted, received, waste, and burn rate).

An Unlogged waste? finding is a loss that nobody measured. The EPA's guide to assessing wasted food says the first step in reducing wasted food is to measure it, so each of these findings is worth a log entry with a reason.

The Reports Health tab with severity and status filter chips above four findings from one count: a critical Usage shift on Sweet Potato Fries, a critical Count error? on To-Go Boxes, a muted Usage shift on Avocados that used less than usual, and a critical Unlogged waste? on Ground Beef. Each finding shows one sentence and its estimated dollar impact

How the expected number is worked out

Tap a finding to see the math as a bridge from the last count to this one: Last count, then each logged change (Received, Waste logged, prep, transfers, sales), then On the books, Normal use, Expected, Counted and Difference. The bridge is the same arithmetic the IRS uses for cost of goods sold in Publication 334: beginning inventory, plus purchases, minus ending inventory.

The Alert details view for an Unlogged waste? finding on Ground Beef. It says the count was 114.2 lbs, 25.8 lbs less than expected, with an estimated impact of $118.53. The Between counts bridge lists Last count 153.1, Received +360, Used in prep −330, On the books 183.1, Normal use (53.31/day × 7 days) −43.1, Expected 140, Counted 114.2 lbs and Difference −25.8

Here is an example. Ground Beef costs $4.00 a lb and its normal use is 4 lb a day. Monday's count was 20 lb. Nothing was received or wasted before Wednesday's count, two days later.

On the books: 20 lb, because nothing came in or went out on record.
Normal use: 4 lb a day × 2 days = 8 lb.
Expected: 20 − 8 = 12 lb.

If Wednesday's count is 30 lb, the shelf holds more than the books can explain and no delivery was logged. The check points to a Missing receipt? for the 18 lb difference, about $72. If the count is 16 lb instead, the kitchen only used the beef more slowly than usual. 16 lb is above the expected 12 lb but not above the 20 lb on the books, so nothing came in unlogged. Rinvy records that as a usage shift in the Health report and never shows it on Home.

Checked twice before you see it

Alerting on every deviation trains everyone to ignore the alerts, so Rinvy is deliberately conservative:

Rule-based checks only flag deviations that clear meaningful dollar and percentage bars, and stand down entirely when the data is too thin to judge (no usage history, too few counts, too long between counts).
Every candidate finding is then reviewed by AI before it surfaces. If a mundane explanation fits the numbers as well as the flagged cause — normal week-to-week swing, count timing, a skewed average — the finding is demoted instead of shown.
At most the top 5 findings per count surface, ranked by dollar impact.

Where findings show up

Right after the count — the count-complete screen shows what the review found (or "No anomalies found"), usually within a few seconds of finishing.
Dashboard — a critical finding sits under Needs attention with low stock and overdue deliveries; a warning or info finding sits under Worth a look just below it. Tap a row for the details and the recommended action.
Push notification — Owners and Managers get a push when a count surfaces a critical finding (the person who did the count doesn't — they just saw it in the app).
Reports → Health — the full cross-session history, filterable by severity and status.
Count snapshot — each past count's page lists everything recorded for that count.

The dashboard's Needs attention card after a count. Four low-stock rows come first. Below them are three critical findings, each with its estimated dollar impact: Unlogged waste? on Ground Beef, Count error? on To-Go Boxes and Usage shift on Sweet Potato Fries.

Acting on a finding

Each finding carries a suggested action that deep-links to the fix — log the missing receipt, record the waste, or open the product's report. The receipt and waste forms open in record-only mode: your count already measured what's on the shelf, so the corrective entry updates the books without changing stock levels again. Acting on it resolves the finding automatically: logging a receipt clears a "Missing receipt?" finding for that product, and logging waste clears an "Unlogged waste?" one.

Dismissing

If a finding is wrong or not worth chasing, dismiss it from the detail view. Dismissals are respected: the same finding type for the same product won't resurface for a week, and later reviews take past dismissals for that product into account.

Why did a product get no finding after my count?

A product gets no finding when its count lines up with the books, or when Rinvy has too little history to judge it. The check needs:

Two completed counts. The first count of a product is a baseline — analysis starts from the second.
A few counts of history. Products with fewer than 3 counts in the last 30 days are observed but not alerted on; the usage expectation isn't stable enough yet.
Costs on products. Dollar impact comes from each product's case cost; products without cost data can't be ranked.
Counts no more than ~2 weeks apart. The longer the gap, the fuzzier the expectation — beyond 14 days, findings are recorded but not surfaced.