losses in vending machine

[Felipe]

Hi, I have some vending machines and I have been having problems with theft from my own replenishers.

The thing is that i don´t have an accurate record of stock in machines, and i believe that my own replenisher aren`t doing a good job and are not filling the machine completely.

I wonder if some if you have the same problem and can figure out a solution for this. I calculate that losses can be up to 10% of sales.

Greetings,

Felipe

[Southeast Treats]

One way of controlling losses is to balance the inventory going out with the money coming in.   You know what your selling prices are, so if they take out 200 items that sell for $1 each and bring back 30, then they should have about $170 in cash or documented refunds.  Of course, there has to be a set par for each machine and they have to be filling to that level, if not they will eventually go empty.  Because of the way vending changers work it will not come out exactly (unless you par changers exactly each time), but they don't have to know how much leeway you will allow.  If they take a coin bank to replenish changers that should be balanced as well, each machine pays for it's own change before collections are counted.   You need to randomly inspect after they fill the machine to insure it's fully stocked and clean.  If they have smart phones you might have them photo each machine after service and email it as they go, that way you also have a time stamp of when they are working.

The last resort if you think you have a thief and need to catch him (rather than just firing him) is to get to the machines before he does.  You need to count the money (or replace it with a precounted stack) and mark some bills, so you know the minimum he should have from that machine.  Their may be another sale or two after you leave but the stacker will never have less money than you counted, so if he comes in short from that machine after refunds you have proof of theft. 

Worst part of any business is having to deal with dishonesty from a trusted employee. 

 

Good luck.

Phillip

 

 

 

[AZVendor]

This is from a thread I posted in previously. 

"The first thing you should do is put accountability controls in place. That means reading the meters of every machine when it's ever opened. Any machine that's opened must be collected and the meter read. Control your cash accountability along with the coin change carried to refill the coin mech. Every machine serviced needs detailed records of what was added, by selection, what was stale and how full every column or spiral is when finished. If you don't do all of this then you're leaving yourself open to theft. You can't trust even a family member. "

I have a more in-depth post elsewhere that I'm trying to find.  You can also search for "accountability."

[AZVendor]

I found this quicker than I thought I would.  It's a long read but well worth it.  No "Likes" on it which is surprising but I think it's because of the long read.  Anyway, here you go:

"This is a very good question to ask of the professionals here.  This subject is often overlooked, especially when vendors believe they can trust the friend or family member they employ.  Speaking from experience, the very first thing you need to do is realize that you can trust no one when dealing with cash. 

As far as service techs go, you will either have to meet them at the location to watch over them or you will have to trust the tech from experience and simply wait to see if anything suspicious comes up.  As a service tech myself, I have never had a customer question me about any missing cash, but I am always concerned that a route driver might take money, knowing I was just there and blame the shortage on me.  I also worry about what the location personnel might think when they see me put money back into my wallet and pocket if I have had to use my own money for testing purposes.  Again, this has never been an issue for me yet in 13 years, but there are some techs in this area that I wouldn't trust to even touch a machine let alone access the money.  I have some customers that insist on meeting me because they don't want to put a common lock in the machine for me to access with or give me a copy of their keys.  However most of my customers either give me a copy or are regularly using common keys or will put a common lock in for my access.

Now to the sticky part of your question.  Again, do not trust any employee.  If they know they are being supervised and watched, regardless of if they are a relative or not, they will be more likely to be honest.  I learned this by running my vending company with 3 route drivers for 16 years.  You must put controls in place to allow you the ability to know when cash is missing or to know when something suspicious has happened.  These controls are referred to as Route Accountability and you need them in place at the machine level, the truck level and the warehouse level (if you have one), for cash and products. 

The bare minimum level of control you need is at the machine level.  This can be accomplished by following route accountability steps that include reading meters at every cash collection.  These meters are built into the logic boards of all late model machines or you can install a unit counter in any single price machine.  The logic meters are best used by reading the non-resettable cash meter at every collection.  The simple formula to use is Beginning Cash Meter (from last end meter) + Coin Added (from outside source) - End Meter = Expected Cash in collection.  Compare the cash collected and counted to the Expected Cash and you will have the over/short of that collection. 

The Coin Added item is for refilling the coin tubes from a change bag issued to the driver.  This is a must as the coin box will not always have the correct number of coins in it to refill the tubes.  Making sure the tubes are filled to the same level every service is important as a fluctuation in the tubes will affect the over/short of the machine.  If the tubes are low and not refilled, you will have an overage. If the tubes are properly filled the next service you will then have a shortage.  These over/shorts may balance out, but don't allow the drivers to regularly ignore this part of the job or you will never know what to expect.  The change bag itself should be issued each week with a known value of rolled coin.  Any time the driver fills the tubes with coin from the change bag, it must be noted on the route ticket so you can track how much coin was used from the bag and so you can subtract that added change from the collection of the machine (coin added externally is cash not generated by sales).  At the end of each week you count the remaining change fund then perform the calculation: Begin Fund - Adds to machines - Remaining Fund = End Fund which should equal the beginning amount.  Any difference means the driver is not recording the information correctly, or stealing from the change fund.

In order to make the driver accountable for products you will use the formula Beg Inv + Adds - Stales - Pulls (back into inv) - End Inv = Units Sold.  I always did this by categories such as chips, cookies, candy, bag snacks, pastry, gum/mint, etc. as prices would be the same for all products in each category.  Then you can perform the product accountability by category instead of lumping it all together in a nightmare inventory.

As to methods to use to keep tabs on drivers, knowing their route order is a must as well as knowing where they should be at any given time.  This is best learned by running the routes yourself or with the drivers so you can learn the timing of the stops.  Once this is known, and if you suspect a problem employee, check the machines ahead of them at one or two stops and count the money in each machine, read the meters and, if you suspect they are stealing bills, mark some of the bills (5's are a popular target) so you can verify that all have been included in the collection bag.  Once they return the cash bags, audit each one to see if anything is amiss.  You must do this a few times if you want to fire someone for cause, but you can probably fire them the first time you confirm it using this method."