Price alerts
Supplier prices drift constantly — and when they jump, your menu's food cost percentage moves with them. Price alerts catch the jump the moment a receipt is recorded so you can react before the next order goes out.
How they fire
Every time you receive a delivery, Rinvy compares each line item's per-unit cost against the previous per-unit cost for that product (from the most recent prior receipt). If the change exceeds your configured threshold, an alert is created.
- Threshold default: 5% change.
- Tunable in Dashboard Settings.
The alert records: product, supplier, old cost, new cost, percentage change, and a link to the receipt that triggered it.
Severity tiers
Color coding makes the dashboard easy to scan:
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blue | Decrease — your cost went down. Worth noticing but not alarming. |
| Orange | Moderate increase — above threshold but below 10%. Routine drift. |
| Red | Large increase — 10% or more. Investigate before reordering. |
Reds are the ones you want to act on. They often mean a supply chain event (commodity spike, supplier price update, currency shift) that may affect future receipts too.
Push notifications
Owners and managers can receive push notifications for price alerts on iOS and Android, if push is enabled for their account. Notifications include the product name and the percentage change so you can decide whether to dig in.
Where alerts show up
- Dashboard — the Price alerts card lists active alerts.
- Push notification — if enabled.
- Product detail page — the product's history shows cost changes over time.
Dismissing alerts
Alerts stay Active until you dismiss them. Dismissing acknowledges the change without taking action — the cost difference doesn't reverse, you just stop seeing the alert on the dashboard.
A dismissed alert doesn't re-fire for the same cost — but the next receipt's price change starts a new comparison. If costs keep climbing, you'll keep getting alerts.
Configuring the threshold
Go to Dashboard settings.
- Find Price alert threshold and set the percentage (default
5). - Save.
A lower threshold (2–3%) catches more drift but creates more noise. A higher threshold (10%) catches only meaningful jumps. Five percent is a good starting point for most operations.
How this differs from food cost alerts
Both fire on receipts, but they answer different questions:
- Price alert — "the price of an ingredient changed beyond threshold". Fires once per receipt per affected product.
- Food cost alert — "the percentage cost of a menu item drifted above its target". Fires per menu item, after the price change ripples through the recipe.
You can get both alerts from the same receipt — a 12% jump in flour cost triggers a price alert on flour, and food cost alerts on every menu item using a pizza dough recipe that uses flour.
See food cost targets and drift alerts.
Common mistakes
Setting the threshold too tight
A 1% threshold fires on noise — small per-case rounding, slight conversion differences. The dashboard becomes unscannable. Start at 5% and tighten only if you have a specific reason.
Dismissing instead of investigating
Reds in particular warrant a 30-second check — was the new cost a one-off (sale price, bulk discount) or the new normal? The action you take depends on the answer.
Treating a single anomalous receipt as the new baseline
If a sale price triggers a blue alert, your weighted-average cost moves down — but only for that receipt. The next receipt at the regular price will re-trigger an alert in the other direction. That's expected.