Route drivers and rolled coin...

[arkhusker]

Curious how those of you with route drivers handled rolled coin to fill mechs.

How much do you send out? How do you account for it outgoing?

Do they pull out of the machine what they put in? How do you account for that?

Do you also send out dollar coins?

Use recyclers?

Thanks in advance. I am looking to create more accountability in this area.

 

[AZVendor]

Each of my drivers was given a bag each week with a known amount of rolled coin. On each collection they would fill the mech from the coin box if possible with no accounting.  If they needed to add from the coin bag then they would account for how much they added to the machine on their route ticket.  We then added up each week the amounts added from their coin bags (listed on their collection tickets) and balanced that back to the coin bags that they turned at the end of each week for an over/short calculation.

[orsd]

I don't have drivers but what I do to keep the numbers straight (and this method should work with drivers too) is similar to AZ's but instead of writing it down I just make a trade. For instance if I need 18 nickels I grab 20 from the change bag and fill the mech, leftover coin then goes into the collected money. Then I grab a dollar bill or 4 quarters from the collected cash and put it the the change bag/fund. Thus, the funds in the bag should stay constant, and be easily auditable (match collections with meter readings, change fund should have the same amount as it left with)

[Snickers]

We just started pricing items to avoid the nickle and dime. High capacity coin mechs for machines that take $5's are all set with quarter tubes. The gold dollars are nice for the customer as opposed to a ton of quarters but we don't like messing with refilling mechs. 

[BlindVending]

10 minutes ago, orsd said:

I don't have drivers but what I do to keep the numbers straight (and this method should work with drivers too) is similar to AZ's but instead of writing it down I just make a trade. For instance if I need 18 nickels I grab 20 from the change bag and fill the mech, leftover coin then goes into the collected money. Then I grab a dollar bill or 4 quarters from the collected cash and put it the the change bag/fund. Thus, the funds in the bag should stay constant, and be easily auditable (match collections with meter readings, change fund should have the same amount as it left with)

This is exactly how I do it too. I just buy the amount back from the collection bag to the float bag. If I used a roll of quarters from the float bag I'll toss a $10 bill in from the collection bag. 

[flintflash]

On 10/28/2017 at 4:52 PM, BlindVending said:

This is exactly how I do it too. I just buy the amount back from the collection bag to the float bag. If I used a roll of quarters from the float bag I'll toss a $10 bill in from the collection bag. 

We do it the same way.  My driver carries about $120 in rolled coin (Dollar coin, nickels and dimes) in a bank bag.  She doesn't need quarters because they tend to always self-fill or there are plenty in the coin box to refill the tube.  She simply pulls out he amount of money from the bills as what she needs to fill the coin tubes from her bank bag.  That way the cashout from the machine is true and her bank bag goes from $120 in coin to $120 in bills.  The next day I swap the bills in her bank bag for more rolled coin.  

[Poplady1]

Once you get those drivers involved, let's be honest, you can spend all day trying to track every coin or dollar that passes through but in the end, you just try to convince your staff that you have control of the product and the money.   The only way we could convince our drivers was by doing the old validator audit.  To do it you need to have a money bag for each machine on your route.  When they drop the coin and bills in the bag they write down the account and which machine.

When you make up the route the day before put a couple of places as first stops on the route.  Then that evening or afternoon before they run the next days route you go do a customer visit to say hello and see how everything is going.

Before leaving pull out the dollars in the validator and count them then put them back in without straightening or they will know someone was there.  The next day when the money is turned in you grab the bags for that account and count it the bills. There better be more then you counted the night before or you have a problem.  It has been my experience that route drivers feel you won't miss 4 or 5 bucks from each machine they service in a day.  Now take a minute and add that up. Let's say have 25 accounts with drink snack.  That's 50 machines min service bi-weekly you will be losing about a $1000 a month.

I know you would hate to know it is happening but you need to know, so check. Once you confront them they will stop for a while.  You have to be diligent.  My sister is a therapist.  She says it is human nature if you are faced with cash every day to pocket a little because you feel underpaid or whatever justifies it, it happens.  

I recently told one of the vendors we have been working with for 6 or 7 years how to do this simple audit.  She insisted none of her drivers (3) would do it and of course they were, one was really helping himself so she had to let him go.

So just keep your coin tubes full so your validator doesn't shut down and you lose real money.  We gave each driver rolls of 3 rolls of nickles each morning, 1 dime. We also tried to avoid pricing that needed change.  .50  .75   1.00  and up was our preferred pricing.