Why does my inventory or report look wrong?

Most "this looks wrong" moments come from one of a small set of root causes. Walk this list before assuming the math is broken.

Inventory or current stock looks off

  • Missing first count. If a product has never been counted, current stock is whatever receipts added minus waste. Without a baseline, the number is just "received minus thrown away" and is usually wrong. → Take your first inventory count.
  • Missing receipt. A delivery arrived but no receipt was entered. Current stock will be lower than reality. Look at activity history to confirm what was received.
  • Duplicate receipt. Same delivery entered twice (e.g. you forwarded the invoice AND entered it manually). Current stock will be higher than reality. Delete the duplicate from receiving history.
  • Record-only used on a new delivery. Stock didn't get the bump. See when to use record-only.
  • Waste not logged. Stock looks higher than the walk-in. Log the waste and stock catches up.
  • Wrong case size. Counts entered as cases-plus-loose are added up using the product's case size — if that doesn't match the supplier pack, every count is off by the ratio.

Cost or food cost looks wrong

  • Zero or estimated cost on a product. No receipts yet — the report is using the product's default case cost as a fallback. Add at least one real receipt to switch to weighted-average pricing.
  • A specific report cost differs from the product page. That's expected — the product page shows the rolling latest, reports show weighted averages over the report range. How cost is computed explains the difference.
  • Recipe-output cost is wrong. Trace it down: the recipe-output's cost recurses to its ingredients. Find the ingredient with the wrong cost first.
  • Menu item food cost spiked. Either an ingredient cost moved (check receipts), the recipe was edited, or a conversion failure is causing an ingredient to use the wrong unit.

Usage looks wrong

Usage = starting stock + received − ending stock. If usage is too high, one of those inputs is off:

  • The ending count is too low (count error, or items shifted to another category).
  • A receipt is missing.
  • The starting count was too high.

If usage is too low, the inverse — typically a missing waste log or a duplicate receipt.

Low stock or ordering looks wrong

  • Wrong minimum stock. Set too high and everything looks low; too low and you stock out before reordering. Tune after a few count cycles.
  • No supplier set. The product still appears in the order list but with no delivery date, no order-by date, and grouped under "No supplier" at the bottom.
  • Burn rate too short. If you set the lookback to 7 days but only counted twice in that window, the burn rate is jumpy. Use 14–30 days once you have enough history.

Variance report shows large gaps

Variance requires Pro + uploaded sales data + correct recipes. Top causes of unexpected variance:

  • Missing recipe for a menu item (theoretical usage is zero for it).
  • POS item not mapped to a Rinvy menu item.
  • Unit conversion warnings — the recipe uses cups but the product has no weight↔volume conversion.
  • Real waste, recipe drift, or theft — which is exactly what the report is built to surface.

When you can't find the source

Common mistakes

Editing a count to "fix" a report

Edit the underlying issue (missing receipt, wrong case size, waste log) instead. Editing counts cascades forward to current stock but doesn't tell you what was actually wrong.

Editing the product's case cost to fix a report number

Reports use weighted-average from receipts, not the product's case cost (unless there are no receipts at all). Fix the underlying receipt.

Assuming variance = theft

Variance is "theoretical usage − actual usage." That gap is shrinkage, but shrinkage includes waste, portioning error, recipe drift, miscounts, and theft — not just theft.

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