Set up suppliers

A supplier in Rinvy is whoever you buy from. Products link to a supplier, and that link is what lets the order list group an order by vendor and project when product will land. Setup is small — name, delivery days, and lead time — but each field is doing real work.

Fields on a supplier

  1. Name (required). The name your team uses out loud — Sysco, US Foods, Restaurant Depot, your local fish supplier. Shown on the order list and in product details.

  2. Delivery days (optional). Which weekdays this supplier actually delivers. Used to project when a placed order will arrive.

  3. Delivery lead time (optional, in days, default 1). The gap between placing an order and the delivery showing up. Combined with delivery days to project the next available delivery date.

  4. Order cutoff time (optional). The time of day this supplier needs an order submitted by. On a day an order is due, Rinvy sends an order reminder about 2 hours before this time — or at 9 AM if you leave it blank. See push notifications.

The Edit supplier form showing the Name, Delivery days weekday chips (Mon, Wed, Fri selected), Delivery lead time, and Order cutoff time fields

Why the order list cares

The order list answers "what should I order today, and when will it land?" To do that it needs two things from the supplier:

  • Delivery days so it knows which weekdays are even candidates.
  • Lead time so it knows you can't order today and have it land tomorrow if the supplier needs 2 days.

If a product is projected to stock out before the next available delivery, the order list flags it. The supplier's schedule is what makes "next available delivery" computable.

Linking products to a supplier

A product carries one primary supplier, set on the product itself (or via the CSV importer) — see product setup overview. That primary supplier is what groups the product on the order list.

If you buy the same item from more than one supplier (or in more than one pack shape — say a 4×5 lb case from your distributor and 10 lb tubes from a club store), don't create duplicate products: add purchase options to the one product instead — see purchase options. Each option records its own supplier, pack size, and price history, and receiving against an option keeps inventory, recipes, and cost math on the single product. The default option is what fills the product's supplier/case size/case cost fields. Purchase options are currently in beta — if you don't see the section in the product editor yet, pick the primary supplier for now.

Plan limits

Each tier caps the number of suppliers you can have:

  • Free: 3
  • Standard: 10
  • Pro: Unlimited

Trying to create a supplier above your cap returns an error and the supplier isn't created. See plan limits.

Common mistakes

Leaving delivery days blank to keep setup short

The order list still works without delivery days — it just can't tell you when a delivery will actually land. Take 30 seconds per supplier to check the right boxes.

Using a lead time of 0

Lead time is the gap between order and arrival. 0 means same-day delivery, which is rare. Most suppliers are 1 or 2.

Creating a generic "Misc" supplier for one-off purchases

Tempting, but it pollutes the order list. Either create real suppliers per vendor or leave one-off products' supplier blank — they'll skip order list grouping cleanly.

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