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At what point do you buy a coin counter


lurtsman

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My pizza ranch did 234.05 for the cycle (2months). I counted it by hand. It feels like the time is quickly coming to get a tool to help me count. Anyone get a great deal on one from ebay or craigslist? Paying 200$ for a counting tool feels a little expensive, perhaps worth it though.

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Ask yourself how serious you are going to peruse vending, that's what I asked myself when I broke down and bought a coin counter. Let me tell you if your time is valuable and cant see yourself rolling change for hours on end its an investment that will pay for itself 10 fold in time savings. I think I paid around 250 for a good coin counter and a currency counter, the currency counter is just as important if you are doing full line. but if you look in eBay you will find some decent deals, I got one that only counts quarters and i believe it does something like 500 coins per minute. Its nice because it can be set to stop at 40, the good ones wont roll them usually but that's no biggie in my opinion.

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In addistion to what has already been said, this is a business asset.  You can take the depreciation on the counter as a tax deduction.  If you were to ever sell your business, this would go with it and be an added value to your business.  I like to play numbers games with myself.  I would say : "If I can place enough locations in the next month that net enough to cover the cost of a coin counter, then I will buy one."  It's a motivational tool.  Sort of like the picture of the Porsche on my wall.

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Yeah I first decided I needed a better way to count quarters when I spilled a cup full of quarters in my car and the fell under the seat.  I was trying to count the quarters while driving to the next location.  This location was only a gumball location, but it sat for like 11 weeks before I was able to pick it up.  I had over $75 in it to be counted.

I had heard of the AccuCount scales that would weigh the coins and give you the dollar amount.  But those are over $100 to buy, even tho they were portable enough to use in my car.  So, I did the next best thing.  I had a battery operated digital food scale that would weigh in grams, so I decided to find out how much quarters weighed.  By averaging the weights of 10, 25, 50, 100 quarters, I found that they weigh 5.66 grams each.  So my counting now goes like this.

1) Put the empty container on the scale and zero out the weight.

2) Pour in the quarters and get the weight in grams.

3) Divide the weight by 5.66 to get the number of quarters.

4) Divide by 4 to get the dollar amount.

This of course is not accurate to the nearest quarter.  I usually round down to the nearest quarter, just to be on the safe side.  You will also prolly want to sort the coins to remove any debris or non-quarters which will skew your weight count.

For most locations where I don't have to count the money and give a commission to the location, I will do this standing over my open trunk after I have put all my gear back into the trunk.  Counting the money and recording it is the last thing I do before I shut the trunk lid and drive to my next location.  It really is very quick and I have found it to be rather accurate.

When I have a commission rack location, I just setup shop on  nearby table and go through each head the same way.  Dump the head, weigh the coins, record it, and go on to the next.

The problem I am now starting to have is to find a place to stow all the coins during my service run.  I currently have a small igloo cooler that has a strong handle and I dump all the coins in there.  My typical service run will bring in about $500 at the least.  So that's about 25lbs of quarters.  This causes the handle on the cooler to bend but not enough to break.  So I'm looking for something as convienient but can also handle the weight.  

I've considered making a small pirates chest out of wood with handles on the side and a big iron padlock.

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One thing you may want to consider is that for all of your commission accounts get them to accept commission payments via check. What I do at 100% of my locations are go in service bring the money out and put it in a zipper bag, that bag them gets put into a large lock box that is actually chained to the seat of the van. Being robbed so many times I now lock the van and the box inside the van. but it makes things much easier to just count the money at home and send out commission checks once a month or once a quarter whatever the location want. you really don't need to get fancy, for a long time I would service the location and come out and put all the money into a zip lock bag and throw a piece of paper in with the location name and date of service then throw it in an empty soda 12 pack. that actually worked well because nobody would think to look at the bottom of the trash pile for the money.

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I certainly appreciate what is being posted here to help out lurtsman here, but he is still on the starting line of the vending business.  Here are some simple ways to get started and is basically what I do:

1.  Start with a Royal Sovereign counter from Quill for about $50 shipped or so.  It is a simple, plastic machine that you pour in about $40 worth of money at a time and crank by hand, perfect for in the car or in location if needed.  You will often get comments on how neat the little thing is.  I know it is plastic and not veery durable and they have met with criticism here on this board, but I have had mine for a year and it has taken a higher than average beating and stood up well.

2.  I also have a Royal Sovereign electric counter I have had since I started pretty much, in 2006.  This thing is also from quill.com and cost me about $225.  This thing is pretty good, holds about $100 at a time and sorts about 300 coins a minute, not too bad for a starter.  I have put about $1000-2000/month through this thing consistently for the past two years easy and it is holding up great so far.  Jams do occur but can be fixed by removing three screws and a plastic housing.  Again, I know this has also been criticized on this site but for the beginner with only a few hundred dollars per month, this is a good starter machine.

3.  As you grow you may consider heavier duty machines like Klopp (the Cadillac of the counter industry) some models even roll the change for you but you are looking at a cost of about $1000 and up for some of these heavier duty models.  I may suck it up and get one of these in the next 12 months.

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I guess I will throw in my 2 cents. For tracking individual locations I would use a gram scale accurate to at least .1 grams and use that to figure the amount of money per location. You can get one for cheap at Property Room Auctions. Then, I would find a bank that will take your loose quarters. I have a business checking account with Old National Bank. Not only will they happily take my quarters, they PREFER it if I don't even wrap them. For me, getting a coin counter is something I would not spend my money on. If it is necessary to wrap quarters for your bank, I would get counting tubes. [http://www.moneycountersdirect.com/quartercounter.jpg/url] They are small, convenient and easy to use. I would not spend the money on a coin counter unless you can no longer justify the time it takes to count and roll quarters and there are no other cheaper alternatives.

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Here's a cheap way to do it.

*Ask the bank for a plastic quarter sorter thingie, not sure what it's called.  They gave me one for free.

*Order online the rounded quarter wrappers with crimped end. You can order 1000 of them for around $20.  http://www.nextag.com/quarter-wrapper/compare-html

You can easily scoop up the quarters in the tray with the rounded wrappers, goes alot faster.

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lurtsman,

I'd recommend buying a quarter counting tube until you can find a great deal on a Klopp or Semcon machine that counts and shoots the quarters into tubes.  Here is the link for the quarter counting tube and it's only like $1.95 on ebay.

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/TWISTEDQUARTER__W0QQ_sacatZTWISTEDQ51UARTERQ5fQ5fW0Q51Q51Q5farmrsQ5A1QQ_sidZ33020490?_nkw=quarter+tube&submit=Search

Posted Image

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You need a coin counter  or a scale.  the scale is much faster just "0" it and set the bag on it and done.   

Funny that this came up.  I just bought one the other day. 

I got this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110419265758&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

I have locations that do $500/mo so I felt it was neccessary.  I was using tubes before. 

I still haven't gotten it yet, I'll let you know how it works. 

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At what point do you buy a coin counter?

I would buy one when you spend more time counting quarters then you do collecting them. If you pay accounts commission, on the spot, you can't seat there all day counting money. Once to get the total amount and than again to count their share. It's part of doing business and can be a write off at the end of the year. You will be amazed how much faster your route will go.

Gary

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Coin counter and Currency counter have been some of the best purchases for my business yet. I actually figured out at one point I was spending 3 hours per week processing the money now I am down to less than an hour. The two hours per week per week saved gives me about 4.3 days per year free where I would be otherwise processing the money. I am quickly approaching the point in my business where I will save me close to a full week out of the year.

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I've been doing about $1000 in quarters for the last few months. I find it still is not too opressive to hand count and roll myself. Once you get a system it isn't too bad. I count out 10 quarters by sliding them off the table into my hand ($2.50) put the stack of 10 in rows of 4 ($10.00). I can grab two stacks and drop them into the roll using my middle finger as guide to slide the quarters down the roll. I haven't timed my self yet, but with more of my locations going to commission I do it on the route since I've counted in out to figure the commission so I just roll then as well. When I get home there really isn't much rolling left.

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i have been putting off buying a coin counter, i should have bought one a long time ago. the reason I have been able to put it off is because I got a bank account at a bank that will run my coins through their counter for free.call a few banks, you will find a few will do this for you. so I really dont need one immediately.

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I zip-lock the money from each machine when servicing, bring it to my office, count it, send out commission checks, then dump money into a heavy plastic box.  When it gets full I take it to the bank where I do my business and they do it free.  Talk to your bank.  Most will be glad to do it for you!!!

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I have both a used klopp and a quarter tube.

for me the advantages with the klopp are:SPEED!I can`t remember how many quarters it counts in a minute but it takes less then reading the first sentance of this post to count a roll of quarters.

it rolls/wraps the quarters up,certaintly the model you will want if you do buy a klopp

disadvantages:it is a bit noisy for some locATions,will count all change as a quarter

It is a bit big.

tube,advantages:is very portable

perfect for those locations that make smaller amounts of money.

disadvantage:it can be a bit tricky wrapping them,but I just got the tube and have rolled less then 600 bucks with it.

I dont suggest the crimmped end wrappers ,they are more expensive.I got mine from suzo-happ uncrimped.

I wonder if the crimped wrapper would help with the tube,or if I just need more practice rounding the flat wrappers.is there a special way of doing this?

AS exciteing as it is to make over 200 bucks on 1 location,it will grow old haveing to sit there counting quarters by hand for such a long time.

I agree that it is best to start with the tube while looking for a deal on ebay or wherever else for a klopp

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antonio,

The preformed quarter rolls will make using the tube or the Klopp easier to use.  Again, it's all about speed.  You can order them in big boxes from www.banksupply.com or at least I think that's the web site.  They have the nice heavy canvas bags like the bank  uses too.  If you just want to count and shoot the quarters into a bag and roll them later this is really fast!  Just don't set the machine on 40 quarters so it will keep shooting them into the bag until you run out of quarters.  I agree that the bigger machine is a pain for small locations that you can't really justify taking in the big machine.  I carry alot of the preformed rolls with me and then when I go into the locations I take a smaller bag with ballpark what should be enough for that location. 

nam

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Kelly,

I roll my quarters and pay the location with the rolls.  They don't want $100 worth of loose quarters that they'd have to roll or do something with.  Most of them like getting cash on the spot and next to never complain about getting the quarters nicely rolled.  Sometimes they will even buy more from me if they need quarters and I get green folding money which isn't as much weight when it's time to go to the bank.  Plus I just like doing it myself and knowing exactly where I stand on the count before I go to the bank.

nam

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Different areas seem to have different policies on unwrapped coins.  Banks in the big cities and larger metro areas seem to not be as friendly to coin vendors.  Most banks will not accept unwrapped coins here and those that do have hefty service fees to process them (especially if you have a business account).  Another vendor uses Wachovia for his unwrapped coins, but he is starting to get hassled about them since they are now owned by Wells Fargo and they want to start charging him a fee.  I am very happy with the coin counter/sorter at Sam's Club since it wraps them in a reasonable time and it also sorts (and wraps) out the non-quarters.  I have a lot of non-quarters due to many drop-through mechs on the route.

Jax

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I know this is getting off subject a bit, but I was wondering if anyone is doing the bulk candy vending business full time or just as a passive income stream.  I've got 10 machines and I spend roughly five hours servicing them every five or six weeks.  For those of you with around 100 or more locations, can you tell me about how long you spend each month on the machines?  With any more than a few machines, a coin counter definitely seems to be worth the costs.

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I know this is getting off subject a bit, but I was wondering if anyone is doing the bulk candy vending business full time or just as a passive income stream.  I've got 10 machines and I spend roughly five hours servicing them every five or six weeks.  For those of you with around 100 or more locations, can you tell me about how long you spend each month on the machines?  With any more than a few machines, a coin counter definitely seems to be worth the costs.

Dude, if you only got 10 machines and its taking 5 hours, they must be spread out like crazy. i do about 7 machines an hour. i have over 200 machines, and spend 3 days servicing a month. with this many i am still not full time. maybe I need too much money.....

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Mxer518.....you have a huge business.....how long have you been into vending?  do you make most of your quarters on troples and doubles?  just curious looking to invest soon....such i invest in Vendstar 3000 or u-turns 4s or 8s?  i could use some advice...

thanks

Whistle

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