Configure a product

Every field on a quantity-tracked product changes how it counts, orders, or costs: the counting unit, case size, case cost, supplier, minimum stock and unit conversions. Pick values that match how your team actually operates, and the numbers on your reports and order list come out right.

Two ways to set a product up

When you add a product, Rinvy offers two paths to the same result:

• Guided setup — a step-by-step wizard that asks one plain-language question at a time. Your early answers (how you track the product, where it comes from) decide which later steps appear, so you only ever see fields that apply. It ends with a Review screen before saving.
• Quick form — the dense, single-screen form this article walks through, with every field at once. Fastest when you already know what you need.

The first time you add a product on a device, Rinvy asks which you'd prefer; after that it reopens whichever you used last. You can switch between the two at any time — each view has a switch link — and nothing you've already entered is lost. Editing an existing product always opens the quick form; switch to the wizard from there if you like.

Both paths collect the same fields and save the same product, so the field-by-field reference below applies whichever you use.

Name and storage area

Name is shown everywhere the product appears — counts, receipts, recipes, reports. Use the name your team would write on a count sheet.

Storage area is the place where you keep the product (Walk-in, Freezer, Dry Storage, Bar, etc.). Every product needs one, except a non-inventoried product. Storage areas decide how products are grouped during inventory counts. See set up storage areas.

Default counting unit

The unit your team uses when counting the product. This is the unit shown everywhere stock is displayed and the unit recipes will most commonly reference.

• Burger patties: each
• Chicken breast: lb
• Olive oil: each (if you count by the bottle) or gallon (if you count by the container)

Pick whatever your team actually says out loud during a count. Don't pick oz just because the supplier sells in ounces — pick the unit you'd hand-write on a count sheet.

Change the counting unit

Until a product has any counts, receipts, or waste, or a recipe that makes it, you can change its unit in the form and save as usual. After that, the unit field is locked, and a Change unit link sits under it. The link is needed because every number Rinvy has recorded for the product is in the old unit. A plain edit would read yesterday's "12 each" as "12 lb". A recipe that makes the product states its yield and its menu items' portions in that unit too.

Change unit asks for the new unit and how much one old unit is in it — for example, 1 each = 0.4 lb for tomatoes. Rinvy then restates the product's whole history in the new unit: every count, receipt, waste line, and transfer, its stock on hand, its minimum stock, and its cost per unit. Dollar amounts don't change, so your food cost and inventory value stay the same. The sheet shows the stock on hand, minimum stock, and unit cost before and after, so you can check the numbers before you confirm.

• Weigh a few. When the change goes from a count to a weight (each to lb), the amount you enter is an average. Weigh a handful and use that. Rinvy applies it to every past count.
• Say what a case holds now. If you buy the product by the case, enter the case size in the new unit (a 25 lb case), or leave it empty if you buy it loose.
• Recipes keep working. Rinvy saves 1 each = 0.4 lb as a unit conversion, so a recipe that uses "0.25 each" still costs and deducts correctly.
• Menu portions follow. When a recipe makes the product, each menu item's portion size is restated too. A portion of 1 each becomes 4 oz at 1 each = 4 oz, so the dish costs the same.

Case size

The number of default-unit items in one supplier case. Optional.

• Burger patties, case size 25 — one case = 25 each.
• Chicken breast (4 lb avg per breast in a case), case size 4.
• Olive oil sold bottle by bottle: leave case size blank.

When case size is set, the count screen shows two inputs and adds them up: Cases, plus a second field for what's loose, labeled with the product's counting unit — a product counted in lb reads Cases + lb. Receiving lets you select either the case unit or the default unit.

Case cost

The cost of one full supplier case. Required if case size is set.

Supplier (optional)

A linked supplier lets the order list group orders by supplier and compute delivery timing from the supplier's order day and lead time. It's optional during initial setup — you can attach a supplier later.

A product carries one primary supplier. If you buy the same item from two suppliers or in two pack shapes, add purchase options to the product rather than creating duplicate products — each option keeps its own supplier, pack size, and price history while inventory and recipes stay on the one product. While a product has purchase options, its supplier, case size, and case cost mirror the default option and are edited there.

Why can't I type a unit cost?

Rinvy calculates unit cost as case cost ÷ case size, so the Unit cost (calculated) field on the product form is read-only. If you want the unit cost to change, change the case cost or case size.

Minimum stock level

The threshold below which a low-stock alert fires and the order list flags the product.

• Burger patties: 60 (covers a busy weekend)
• Chicken breast: 10 lb
• Olive oil: 2 (always have a backup bottle)

Minimum stock is in the default unit. Pick a value that covers your typical delivery cycle for that supplier. For fast-moving items, lean higher; for shelf-stable backups, lean lower.

Unit conversions (optional)

Unit conversions tell Rinvy that the same product can be measured more than one way, so recipes (and receiving) aren't locked to the unit your team counts in.

You don't need a conversion just to move between units of the same kind — pounds and ounces, or cups and tablespoons, already convert on their own. Conversions are for crossing between weight, volume, and count.

Built-in cups, pints, quarts and gallons are US sizes. A cup is the US cup of about 236.6 ml, and a gallon is the US gallon of about 3.785 l, the values in NIST's conversion factor tables. An imperial gallon holds about 4.546 l, so convert imperial pints or gallons to ml or l before you enter them.

Bottles and hotel pans are volumes too, so they convert to cups, quarts and gallons on their own. A 32oz bottle holds 32 fl oz. Hotel pans (steam table pans, such as Cambro food pans) come in 1/9, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and full sizes, each 2.5", 4" or 6" deep. Each pan holds its brim-full volume from Cambro's catalog, for example 3.8 quarts for a 1/3 pan 4" deep. A pan with no depth in its name is the 2.5" pan.

slice is a count unit, like each. To use bacon by the slice in a recipe and count it by the pound, add a row such as 1 lb = 16 slice.

Each conversion is one row, one fact: 1 [unit] = [amount] [unit]. Add as many rows as your product needs with Add conversion; every row is always on screen, whatever unit you count in.

• Either direction. State a row whichever way is easiest to check — 1 tbsp = 6 g rather than 1 g = 0.1667 tbsp — and use the ⇄ button to read it the other way round. Rinvy works with both readings, so nothing is lost either way.
• Rows chain. Eggs counted by the case: 1 case = 180 each and 1 each = 50 g is all Rinvy needs to cost a recipe written in grams. You never enter the weight of a whole case — the line under the rows shows what Rinvy works out (So 1 case = 180 each · 9000 g).
• Any unit, not just your counting unit. A row doesn't have to start from the unit you count in. 1 bag = 5 lb on a product counted in oz is fine; Rinvy relates bags to ounces through pounds.

For a product counted by weight or volume, the presets (sugar, flour, oil, milk, …) fill in a density row — 1 lb = 2.27 cup — in one tap. For an ingredient with no preset, USDA FoodData Central gives gram weights for portions such as 1 cup or 1 tablespoon for many foods. Enter the weight it lists as a row.

Add a conversion from a recipe

You don't have to open the product to add a missing conversion. When a recipe or menu item row says "Can't convert", tap Add conversion under the error. The sheet adds one row to the product, for the two units on the recipe row, and keeps every row the product already has. If the product already has a different amount for the same two units, the sheet says so and changes nothing. Edit or remove that row here on the product instead.

Supplier-specific conversions

When you resolve an ambiguous unit on an invoice — telling Rinvy that a supplier's "bag" of this product is really a case — that resolution is remembered for that supplier and listed here under Supplier-specific (learned from invoices). It applies whenever you receive this product from that supplier, on the receiving screen as well as on future invoices, and is re-learned the next time you resolve a unit on one of their invoices.

Changing the counting unit later

A conversion is a fact about the product whatever you count it in, so changing the counting unit keeps every row as it is. Rinvy checks first that every recipe that uses or produces the product can still convert to the new unit, and refuses the change — naming the recipe — when one can't. For a product with no history yet, the check reads the conversions as you are saving them, so changing the unit and adding the conversion that makes it work is one save, not two. For a product with history, Change unit adds the conversion for you (see Change the counting unit above).

Active toggle

Existing products show an Active toggle. Inactive products are hidden from counts, the order list, and low-stock alerts, but their history (receipts, recipes, reports) is preserved. Inactivating is the safer alternative to deleting a product that's been used in any workflow.

Example

Related

• Product setup overview
• Choose the right product type
• How cost is computed
• Import products from CSV