# Vendor spend

Vendor Spend totals what you spent with each vendor from posted invoices, shows it by week, month or quarter, and flags items whose price moved. Web app, admins by default.

For: Admins · On: Web · [Help Center](https://www.mays.app/help) › [Reports & insights](https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights) · Last updated October 3, 2026 · Mays Team

**Insights → Vendor Spend** totals what you spent with each vendor from your posted invoices, shows it over time, and flags items whose price moved.

**Who:** admins. Anyone else needs a custom role with the **View insights** permission, and then sees only the locations they work at. Insights is part of every plan, on the web app only.

The numbers come from vendor invoices you've posted under **Inventory → Invoices**, which is part of the Pro plan. See [Vendor invoices](https://www.mays.app/help/inventory/vendor-invoices).

## Open Vendor Spend

1. Go to **Insights → Vendor Spend**.
2. Click the date button to change the dates. The page starts on the last 30 days, today included.
3. Choose **Week**, **Month** or **Quarter** for the columns.
4. Under **Filter data**, pick the **Branches** (locations) and **Vendors** to include. The page opens on the location picked at the bottom of the sidebar.

Three tiles at the top show **Total Spend**, the number of **Vendors** and the number of **Invoices**.

![The Vendor Spend page on By Vendor for South, Aug 24 to Sep 23, by week: tiles Total Spend $951.30, Vendors 3 and Invoices 5, and a table with Sunrise Dairy Co., Harbor Coffee Roasters and Metro Restaurant Supply by week W35 to W39 with a Total column, a trend line for each vendor and a Total row](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__vendor-spend__01-by-vendor.5edbe039b7.png)

## The four tabs

| Tab | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| **By Vendor** | A row per vendor and a column per week, month or quarter, with **Total** and a small **Trend** line. Weeks are numbered, for example *W38*. Click **Total** to sort. |
| **By Category** | The same, by the category of each inventory item. Lines not matched to an item are **Uncategorized**. |
| **Price Watch** | A card per vendor, and an **Items** table of what each item cost (see below). |
| **Invoices** | **Spend Timeline**, a bar per day split by your five biggest vendors (the rest are **Other**), and **Timeline Detail**, every invoice line with its **Date**, **Vendor**, **Item**, **Qty**, **Unit Price** and **Spend**. |

## Watch prices

On **Price Watch**, a vendor's card shows **Price changes** when any of its items changed by 10% or more between its last two invoices.

![The Price Watch tab: vendor cards for Sunrise Dairy Co. with a Price changes badge, Harbor Coffee Roasters and Metro Restaurant Supply, and the Items table with Item, Vendor, Latest Price, Prev Price, Δ$, Δ% and Wtd Avg, where Oat milk went from $21.00 to $23.40 (up 11.4%) and Whole milk from $18.70 to $17.90 (down 4.3%)](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__vendor-spend__02-price-watch.dc5785da59.png)

The **Items** table lists each item with:

- **Latest Price** and **Prev Price:** the price on its last two invoices, per pack as invoiced (a case, a bag).
- **Δ$** and **Δ%:** the change between them. Red with ↑ is a price rise; green with ↓ is a drop.
- **Wtd Avg:** what you paid per pack on average, weighted by how many you bought. Also **Min**, **Max** and **Qty**.

Type in **Search items or vendors…** to find one. To be told as soon as a price jumps, click **Set Alert** at the top right. See [Alerts and scheduled reports](https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights/alerts-and-scheduled-reports).

## Good to know

- **Only posted invoices count.** Drafts and invoices waiting for review don't. Tax on the invoice isn't included.
- **Invoices are dated by when they were posted,** not by the date printed on them. An invoice posted a week late lands in the week you posted it.
- **Unknown vendor:** when you pick the vendor yourself on an invoice, instead of Mays reading it from the photo, it shows here as *Unknown vendor* for now.
- **Invoices without a vendor** are left out here, but they're in **Invoice Spend** on [Prime cost](https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights/prime-cost), so the two totals can differ.
- **Prices compare within your dates.** **Prev Price** is the previous invoice in the range you picked, and pack sizes are compared as invoiced.
- **The Vendors filter** changes **By Vendor**, **Price Watch** and **Invoices**, but not the tiles at the top or **By Category**. When you change the dates and a new vendor appears in the list, it starts unticked; tick it to include it.
- **Days are each location's own days,** in its time zone.
- **There's no export.** For a weekly or monthly email, schedule a **Vendor Spend** report.
- **The filters hide on narrow screens.** If you don't see **Filter data**, make the window wider.

## Related articles

- Inventory: [Vendor invoices](https://www.mays.app/help/inventory/vendor-invoices) — Record what vendors delivered and charged. Scan or photograph an invoice, upload its PDF, share it from your phone or email it in, and the AI drafts it; check the lines next to the document, then post it to add the stock and update your prices.
- Inventory: [Vendors and vendor catalogs](https://www.mays.app/help/inventory/vendors-and-vendor-catalogs) — Vendors are the suppliers you buy from. Set how each one takes orders, which locations use it, and each location's delivery days, cutoff and minimum order.
- Reports & insights: [Prime cost](https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights/prime-cost) — Prime Cost puts each day's sales next to its labor cost and theoretical food cost, and shows the share of sales each one takes. Web app, admins by default.
- Reports & insights: [Alerts and scheduled reports](https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights/alerts-and-scheduled-reports) — Get a notification when labor runs hot, a vendor raises a price or a form reading is out of range, and have a labor, prime cost or vendor spend summary emailed every week or month.
- Inventory: [Placing purchase orders](https://www.mays.app/help/inventory/purchase-orders) — Build orders from your par levels, send each vendor a PDF purchase order by email, and check what arrived against what you ordered.
- Inventory: [Inventory items](https://www.mays.app/help/inventory/inventory-items) — Items are what you count, order and cost, like a carton of oat milk or a pound of espresso. Each has a count unit, other units such as a case, and vendor prices.
- Team & roles: [Roles and permissions](https://www.mays.app/help/team-roles/roles-and-permissions) — What the built-in Admin, Manager and Employee roles can do, how location access works, and how to build a custom role from individual permissions.

## Still need help?

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Canonical: https://www.mays.app/help/reports-insights/vendor-spend