Choose the right product type
Rinvy supports five product modes plus an "active/inactive" toggle. The mode you pick decides how the product shows up in counts, the order list, recipes, and reports.
Every mode lives on one screen. On the quick add/edit form, the mode toggles sit just below the name — flip one on and the fields below adjust to match.
Quantity-tracked (the default)
The right mode for almost everything you buy.
- Count in exact units (lb, each, case, gallon).
- Appears in counts, the order list, low-stock alerts, recipes, and every report.
- Tracks cost from receipts.
Use for: chicken breast, flour, buns, beer kegs, produce, sauces you buy in bulk.
Status-tracked
The right mode for non-countables where OK/Low/Out is enough.
- Three states: OK, Low, Out.
- Does not appear in cost reports, waste logging, recipe ingredients, or the order list.
- Receiving a status product resets stock to OK regardless of quantity received.
Use for: napkins, to-go boxes, cleaning supplies, smallwares.
Auto-tracked
The right mode for things you sell one-for-one, straight out of the cooler. Instead of counting them every night, Rinvy subtracts what your POS says you sold.
- Requires a sales feed — uploaded sales data or Toast auto-sync. Available on Standard and Pro.
- Turning it on asks for a selling price and a starting count, then creates a matching menu item for you so POS sales can find the product.
- Skipped during regular inventory counts. Reconcile with a physical count whenever you like via Recount auto-tracked items on the Inventory page.
- Stock can go negative — that's the shrinkage signal. A recount resets the running balance.
Use for: bottled soda, canned beer, packaged snacks, bottled water.
Recipe output
The right mode for things you make in-house.
- Cannot be purchased from suppliers (receiving will reject any line that maps to a recipe-output product).
- Produced by recipes; consumed by other recipes or sold as menu items.
- Cost is computed recursively from ingredient costs.
Use for: marinara, pizza dough, chicken stock, dough balls.
To bridge a prepped item back to a purchasable raw ingredient, set its source product link.
Non-inventoried
The right mode for things used in recipes that shouldn't affect inventory value or appear in counts.
- Skipped in counts, ordering, and cost calculations.
- Can still be a recipe ingredient.
- Marking a product non-inventoried removes its category and clears its supplier, case size, cost, and source link. Turning the toggle back off does not restore those values — you'll need to re-enter them.
Use for: water, ice, salt used only in recipes, items that shouldn't show up in inventory value.
Inactive products
Inactivating is the safer alternative to deleting when a product has history.
- Hidden from counts, the order list, low-stock alerts, and the default product list.
- Still appears in old receipts, recipes, prep logs, and most historical reports (Usage, Spending, Waste, Variance, Product, Menu Item) — a closed period doesn't change because a product was archived afterwards.
- The Inventory Value report is the one exception: it shows what your inventory is worth right now, not history, so an archived product is left out by default (an old count that never got zeroed out shouldn't inflate today's total). Its Include archived toggle brings it back if you need to check.
- Reactivatable at any time.
On the Products page, an Inactive filter chip lets you show archived products and reactivate them.
Common mistakes
Switching a product to status tracking and losing all the cost data
Status tracking force-clears supplier, case size, case cost, and conversions. If you set those up once and then switched to status, the values are gone — you'd have to re-enter them to switch back.
Trying to receive a recipe-output product
Receipts are blocked server-side for recipe-output and non-inventoried products. If a product you expect to receive isn't showing up in the search, check whether it's one of those types.
Deleting instead of inactivating
Hard delete is only allowed if the product has no history (no counts, receipts, orders, recipes, prep logs, or waste). Otherwise the delete falls back to deactivation silently. Inactivating directly is clearer.