One-off Suppliers

Not every purchase comes from your regular supplier. Sometimes you grab milk from a supermarket because a delivery is late, pick up a tray of pastries that were on a short-dated clearance sticker, or take advantage of a one-time promotional offer from a backup wholesaler. Brikly calls all of these one-off purchases and gives you tools to handle them without polluting your regular costing data.

What is a one-off supplier?

A one-off supplier is a supplier you buy a specific ingredient from occasionally, not as your regular source. Common examples:

• Buying milk from Tesco when your dairy wholesaler's delivery is late.
• Picking up flour from a local shop because you ran out mid-shift.
• A promotional or introductory price from a backup wholesaler that you don't expect to repeat.
• Short-dated stock or end-of-line clearance buys at a heavy discount.
• A one-time bulk deal that doesn't reflect what you would normally pay.

Even if the one-off supplier is cheaper, you usually don't want their price affecting your recipe costs. The quantity might be impractical for regular use, the discount might be a one-time event, or the product quality or provenance might not match your standard.

Marking a supplier as one-off

You set a one-off pattern in one place: the New Supplier Data modal, which Brikly opens the first time it sees a new supplier for an ingredient you already buy (for example, the first time a Tesco receipt includes an ingredient you normally get from your wholesaler).

Near the bottom of that modal, above the save buttons, is a tickbox:

One-off supplier (promotional, clearance, short-dated, or emergency)

Future invoices from [supplier] for this ingredient won't trigger price change reviews. Use this for supermarket runs, backup suppliers, short-lived promotional offers (e.g. clearance or short-dated stock), or any purchase you don't want affecting your regular costing.

Tick it before you save. The supplier's pack and price details are still recorded in full, Brikly just knows not to raise price change reviews for that pairing again.

Ticking One-off supplier greys out Set as preferred supplier in the same modal, with the note "A one-off supplier can't be preferred." A supplier whose prices you have chosen never to review should not be the one your recipes are costed from.

For more on that modal, see New Supplier Verification.

Dismissing a review is not the same thing

A price change review can be dismissed with the reason One-off purchase. That clears the one review in front of you and nothing more - it does not create a pattern, and the next invoice from that supplier is compared and flagged as normal. See Reviewing Line Items - One-off purchases.

What one-off patterns do

When a supplier is marked as one-off for a specific ingredient, Brikly:

1. Records the price in the price history as normal, and updates that supplier's own price on file, so you still have a complete record of what you paid.
2. Skips the price change review, so no amber alert appears on the invoice line item and the change does not block submission.
3. Leaves your recipe costs alone, because recipes are costed from your preferred supplier's product and the one-off supplier is not it.
4. Keeps them out of comparisons, so a one-off price is never measured against another supplier's price, never counts as the "cheaper alternative" to the supplier you cost from, and never triggers the "there is a cheaper supplier" warning on the ingredient list.
5. Tracks the extra cost, so the CostingBrik dashboard and the Cost Optimisation tab show how much more you paid than the cheapest supplier for the same volume. That lets you see the true cost of last-minute buying, clearance hunting, or promotional deals that don't repeat.

One-off patterns are per-ingredient

Marking Tesco as a one-off supplier for milk does not affect any other ingredients. If you also buy butter from Tesco, that is a separate relationship and will still trigger price reviews unless you mark it as one-off too.

Remove the pattern before making that supplier preferred

The one-off rule is applied before Brikly checks which supplier your recipes cost from. If you set a supplier as preferred while their one-off pattern is still in place, their invoices will update your recipe costs without ever raising a review. Remove the one-off status first, as described below.

Viewing one-off suppliers

The amber One-off badge appears wherever suppliers are listed for an ingredient:

• On the ingredient detail page, next to the supplier name in the supplier list, alongside the Preferred and Archived badges.
• On the Ingredients list, in the All Suppliers table you get when you expand an ingredient row.
• On the Cost Optimisation tab under CostingBrik > Suppliers, as an "Incl. [supplier]" note under the ingredient name, and again inside the comparison modal - both as a tag in the Available Suppliers table and as a One-off Purchases Detected panel listing the suppliers involved, the extra cost paid, and the one-off volume.

Removing one-off status

If your buying pattern changes, for example a backup supplier becomes your regular source, or a promotional price turns into a standing arrangement, you can remove the one-off status from the ingredient detail page:

1. Open the ingredient.
2. Find the supplier with the One-off badge.
3. Click the small X inside the badge ("Remove one-off status, future invoices will trigger price reviews").
4. The badge disappears and future invoices from that supplier will trigger normal price change reviews.

Price changes are measured per supplier product, so the first invoice after you remove the badge is compared against the last price Brikly recorded for that supplier, which may well be the clearance or promotional price that made them a one-off in the first place. Expect that first review to read as a large increase; confirm it and the baseline is back to normal.

One-off costs on the dashboard

The CostingBrik dashboard includes a One-off stat card showing:

• The number of ingredients with one-off purchases in the analysis period.
• The total extra cost paid compared to the cheapest supplier's price for the same volume.

The Cost Optimisation tab flags the same ingredients in more detail, showing which suppliers are one-off and how much extra volume and cost they account for. This helps you spot patterns. If you are regularly making one-off purchases for the same ingredient, it might be time to add a second regular supplier or adjust your ordering schedule. If the same "one-off" supplier keeps appearing at a similar price, it may no longer be a one-off, and you can promote them to a regular supplier by removing the badge on the ingredient detail page.