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Product setup overview

A product in Rinvy is anything you count, receive, prep, waste, or use in a recipe. Every other feature reads from your product catalog, so taking a few minutes to set products up correctly the first time pays off across counts, receipts, recipes, prep, orders, alerts, and every report.

What do you decide for each product?

You decide five things for each product, and each answer is one setting:

  1. Where do you physically count it? → storage area (Walk-in Cooler, Freezer, Dry Storage, etc.)
  2. What unit do you count it in? → default unit (lb, each, case, gallon…)
  3. Do you buy it, make it, or only use it inside recipes? → product type
  4. Does it need an exact quantity or just OK/Low/Out? → tracking method
  5. When should Rinvy warn you to reorder? → minimum stock level

Get these right and almost every downstream feature works without further configuration.

The Products page listing the catalog grouped by storage area, with Supplier, Unit, Min, Pack, and Cost / case columns for each product

New to Rinvy? The fastest start is scanning a supplier invoice — Rinvy creates the products (and supplier) from a photo. For products you add by hand, the Add product dialog offers two approaches: Guided setup, a step-by-step wizard that walks through exactly these questions one screen at a time, and Quick form, the full form on a single screen. The configure a product article covers both side by side.

The Add product dialog asking "How would you like to set up this product?" with two option cards: Guided setup and Quick form

Where each answer shows up

  • Storage area. Every inventory count lists products under their storage area, in the walk order that you set on Storage Areas. A counter at the walk-in sees the walk-in products together.
  • Counting unit. Rinvy keeps every number for the product in this unit: counts, stock on hand, minimum stock and cost per unit. A receipt in cases or a recipe in grams converts to it.
  • Product type. A recipe output or a non-inventoried product cannot be received. A non-inventoried product is also left out of counts.
  • Tracking method. A status-tracked product is left out of cost reports, waste logging and recipe ingredients. At Low or Out, it joins the order list without a cost.
  • Minimum stock. A count below it puts the product on Home as low stock, and the order list's Order to par mode orders back up to it.

How products feed your food cost

Counts and receipt costs together give the value of what is on your shelves. Your accountant needs that value as well. IRS Publication 334 explains that a business that buys goods to sell values its inventory at the beginning and end of each tax year to figure its cost of goods sold. The Inventory Value report shows what your counted stock is worth today.

Rinvy prices a product from the deliveries that you receive, so you do not keep a price list up to date by hand. Food prices change during the year, and the USDA Economic Research Service updates its Food Price Outlook forecasts every month. A case cost that you type in when you add a product is the starting point. After the first delivery, your receipts set the cost.

Which choices are hard to change later?

The name, the storage area and the minimum stock change with one edit at any time. Three changes take more care:

  • Counting unit. Until the product has a count, a receipt, a waste line or a recipe that makes it, you change the unit in the form. After that, the unit locks, and Change unit restates the product's history with a factor such as 1 each = 0.4 lb. Dollar amounts do not change. While a product has purchase options, its unit cannot change.
  • Status tracking. Turning on Status tracking only sets the unit to each and clears the supplier, case size, case cost and unit conversions on the form. Turning it off again does not bring them back. A product that a recipe uses cannot switch to status tracking.
  • Non-inventoried. Marking a product non-inventoried removes its storage area and clears its supplier, case size, cost and source link.

Deleting is the last resort. Rinvy deletes a product only when it has no history. Otherwise Rinvy makes the product inactive, which keeps old reports correct. See Choose the right product type.

Plan limits

Free restaurants can manage up to 50 products and 3 suppliers. Standard raises both to 300 and 10. Pro is unlimited.

Long catalogs

Above 150 rows, the Products and Inventory pages show only the rows near your screen. Rinvy adds the other rows as you scroll. Your browser's find-in-page (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) sees only the rows on screen, so use the search box at the top of the page to find a product.

Common shapes

  • Chicken breast — quantity-tracked, supplier US Foods, default unit lb, case size 4, case cost $45.99, minimum stock 10 lb.
  • To-go boxes — status-tracked. OK/Low/Out is enough; you don't need to count individual boxes.
  • Marinara — recipe output. Not purchased; produced by a recipe. Tracked in quarts.
  • Water — non-inventoried. Used in recipes but doesn't affect cost or counts.

For the chicken breast, Rinvy works out a unit cost of about $11.50 per lb: $45.99 ÷ 4. A count of 8 lb shows on Home as low stock, 8 / 10 lb.

Where to start

  1. Starting from scratch? Scan a supplier invoice to build the catalog automatically, or import from CSV if you keep a spreadsheet.
  2. Choose the right product type for each item.
  3. Configure a product.
  4. Once costs are flowing, read how cost is computed.

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