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.

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 can only have one supplier. The supplier is set on the product itself (or via the CSV importer) — see product setup overview. If you buy the same item from two suppliers, pick the primary one or create two products and disambiguate them by name.

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.

Related