Chard Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 I've been thinking about jumping into VMS for our route. For those who have tried it, how much time would you estimate it saves you? What benefits have you experienced? We're running a very low level of VMS using the Nayax software right now, but after speaking with Parlevel I know we could do a lot more. In addition, I'd really like to hear experiences with prekitting. What was the conversion like, did it take long to learn the system, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKK Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Can u use usatech for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chard Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 I'm not referring just to Dex reads. Nayax does that as well, probably better that USA. I'm looking into the entire management program. I'm just not sure if it will save the time and money that I spend for service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 It will have a much larger impact on companies that run multiple routes as it allows large box truck routes to be scaled down to, in some cases, cargo van routes. This is because the vehicle only carries the amount of product that was sold and therefore only what needs to be stocked. If you begin pre-kitting when small and you intend to grow the business it will benefit you immensely as you add vehicles. While you won't be able to see comparable savings within your operation in that case, you will see that you can sell the same volume as your competitors using box trucks while you are using much smaller vehicles that use less fuel and have cheaper maintenance. You will save money on payroll as you will need fewer route drivers and you can schedule your routes closer together due to the prediction algorithms. You can also vary your service periods as your software can be set to only schedule a service when you reach a certain percent of sell-through. This is the key to true efficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 You sound like where I was a year ago. I was using nayax as well but only for about 10% of my machines, the rest were offline. I was running route cards to try and keep up and as the route grew I was very tired of all the paper and afraid of losing track of accounts. I started with parlevel about August of last year. Lots of data to load and a lot to learn, but even tho I am a small account, they sent a trainer out to spend a day working with us, and their support team has been there for me every time. They give you access to a chat program so that anytime you have an issue you can get quick answers. The online machines came over nicely, and we began by working the offline machines still out of the "rolling warehouse" model but using a tablet to record the service data in the field. I found I could go in, count the machines into the tablet, save the data and pull it back up at the truck to pick the order. We built up a sales history that way for each machine so that when we were ready to prekit the prediction program would have plenty of data. About a month ago I finally had a prekitting room ready to go and enough data, so one day we just made the jump. So far I am very happy with prekitting. It does speed up field service and I am not seeing any problems with understocking machines. My back feels much better because I am not crawling into a small van over and over to pull orders! Also, I'm not driving my inventory all over town, getting shaken and overheated in the Florida sunshine, and no worries about running out of something on the truck because I don't have room to carry enough! Scheduling is getting more efficient, and I found that I could pull up an offline report for a machine and by doing a split screen on the computer, update the planograms to pull slow product and add new product using valid sales figures. The online machines have additional reporting for the computer to help you optimize the planograms since they have all the dex data, but the offline reports are almost as good when your data from the field is good. Considering the price, I am very happy and am sure it will pay off for me. I have even modified my accounting to take advantage of the collection tracking in parlevel to make the count room process less repetitive. Count me as a very happy customer of ParLevel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Nice report there. It sounds like Parlevel is a good choice for vendors to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chard Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Thank you so much. This is very helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkhusker Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 I have been a Parlevel customer since fall of 2014 and there just isn't any better company in the vms business. Alan even asked me to be on their Tech Talk panel at NAMA last year, as a small operator. I'm using USAT telemetry and readers with about 70% of our machines, the rest offline. But Parlevel has also built their own telemeter which is the only unit in the industry that is dex on demand and priced reasonably. Parlevel is like having my very IT dept. They answer me anytime on Slack (team messaging software) from any device (pc, tablet, phone) even on the weekends. Just ask them. I make them earn every penny! And we still have a great working relationship. The forecasting for offline is good. We have been operating 1.5 routes entirely paperless for almost a year with iPads for warehouse operations, route service and OCS and they just announced Micro-market integration. From my experience, the small operator can benefit as much from Parlevel as the large ones can. A single operator can get about 15-25% more done than without a VMS. It has allowed us to grow from about 20% since implementing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lbfrozen Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 SE Treats, Can you elaborate on this? "modified my accounting to take advantage of the collection tracking in parlevel to make the count room process less repetitive" Our latest purchase of accounts is killing us in the count room (good problem to have, but it is overwhelming). Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 When your driver completes a route online, an open consolidation report is created in the system, with blanks for bills collected, coins collected, change added, and refunds paid. It all ties back to your individual collection bags, which can be set up with bag numbers instead of account names. The count room can pull up the report and use it as they count each bag, so the data is in the system for each machine/location/route as they go. The consolidation report will also let them confirm all of the bags made it home! When each report is done I just transfer the gross to my accounting program, instead of my old system of creating a sales receipt in the accounting program for each location. The consolidation also shows DEX collection data and over/under collection for online machines; it estimates offline machines based on inventory added but does not show over/under for those. ParLevel can then run any report you need for locations, individual machines, or machine groups; including computing commissions.. You don't have to use it to use the rest of ParLevel but for me it makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkhusker Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Parlevel analytics and machine optimization are unmatched. And I find it pretty intuitive to use. One of the founders was an operator so they had a good grasp of what they wanted and were doing going in. Not to mention their response to customer needs ands feedback. More than one feature has been at my request. They figure if one operator could use it there are probably others that could to so they do their best to make it work for you if they can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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