Price alerts
A price alert tells you that a supplier's case price for a product moved by your threshold or more, 5% by default, since the last delivery. Rinvy checks each receipt as you save it and puts the change on Home. You can then react before the next order goes out. Every plan includes price alerts.
How they fire
Every time you receive a delivery, Rinvy compares each line's cost per case with the previous cost per case for that product, from the most recent earlier receipt. If the change meets or exceeds your threshold, an alert is created. The check runs on every receipt: one you enter by hand, a scanned or forwarded invoice that you review, and an invoice that Rinvy approves on its own.
A receipt dated in the past compares with the last delivery on or before its date. A late invoice therefore still reports the move in the right direction.
- 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.
How a price alert reads on Home
Each price alert is one row with a Price ↑ or Price ↓ chip. The row shows the size of the move and its source, for example ↑ 15.0% · Fresh Farms. A delivery on a non-default purchase option shows the option's name instead of the supplier.
Increases of 10% or more are the ones to check before you reorder. They may come from a market-wide move rather than from one supplier. The BLS Producer Price Index measures the average change over time in the selling prices that domestic producers receive. USDA Market News publishes wholesale, retail and shipping data for farm commodities. A decrease is worth noticing too, because it may be a one-time sale price.
Push notifications
Owners and managers can receive push notifications for price alerts on iOS and Android, if push is enabled for their account. Rinvy sends one push per receipt. A receipt with one change reads "Ground Beef price increased by 15.0% ($40.00 → $46.00/case)". A receipt with several changes reads "3 price changes detected: Flour, Butter, Eggs", with up to three names and then "and 2 more".
Where alerts show up
- Dashboard: active alerts appear in the Worth a look list under Needs attention. A price move has no deadline, so it sits below the time-bound rows.
- Push notification: if enabled.
- Product report: the Product report (Reports → Product) charts a product's cost changes over time under Price History (Cost per Case).
- Alert history: the Alerts report (Reports → Alerts) keeps every price move after it leaves the dashboard, with when it fired and whether it was dismissed.
Dismissing alerts
Alerts stay Active until you dismiss them. Tap an alert in the Worth a look list to open Alert details. It shows the supplier, the previous and new cost, and the percent change. Then use Dismiss alert. Dismissing acknowledges the change and takes no other action. The cost difference stays, and the alert leaves the dashboard.
A dismissed alert doesn't re-fire for the same cost. The next receipt's price change starts a new comparison, so if costs keep climbing, you keep getting alerts.
Configuring the threshold
Go to Dashboard settings.
- Find Price alert threshold and set the percentage (default
5). - Tap Save settings.
The threshold takes any value from 1% to 100%. 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.
For example, flour costs $20.00 a case on Monday's receipt and $21.50 on Thursday's, a 7.5% rise. With the default 5% threshold, Thursday's receipt raises a price alert. With a 10% threshold, it stays quiet.
Which receipts skip the price check?
A receipt raises no price alert when Rinvy has no earlier price to compare with, when the line is not a normal delivery, or when the move is too small:
- The product's first delivery. There is no earlier price yet.
- A different purchase option. Rinvy compares prices within one purchase option. The first delivery on a new non-default option starts its own price history, so a switch from the Sysco case to the US Foods option never alerts.
- Shorts, credits and returns. Only normal delivery lines are compared.
- A move below the threshold. With a 5% threshold, a 4.9% move stays quiet and a 5.0% move alerts.
- An edit to a saved receipt. A corrected cost fixes the receipt but sends no new alert, because the price was already reported.
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, such as small per-case rounding or slight conversion differences. The dashboard becomes unscannable. Start at 5% and tighten only if you have a specific reason.
Dismissing instead of investigating
Increases of 10% or more 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 Price ↓ 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.