Inventory Management

[Healthy Holmes]

I'm having trouble managing my inventory. I've used some apps, with little success. 

Each day i'm sent a PDF of my previous days transactions, and then I have to put them in an app (which have been unreliable so far) or a spreadsheet. 

Ideally, I"d love a solution that updates my sold inventory automatically, but that solution seems to be out of my budget range. 

So, does anyone have a cost effective way to automatically update my inventory either using my pdf information or connecting with my system? Or does anyone use a reliable app?

Thanks!

[Southeast Treats]

Presuming that your machines have cc readers/online telemetry, I would suggest you look at a VMS (vending management system); I use and recommend ParLevel http://www.parlevelsystems.com/

Your data will feed directly into the VMS and update your machine inventory based on your planograms.  If not all of your machines have telemetry, it can also handle them as offline machines using historical service data.  It can then generate pick lists and service routes for you.  It has other modules to track your warehouse inventory as well, and generate order lists based on inventory in the system and anticipated need.  Good people, very good support, always being improved.  Software as a service, you will pay a monthly fee to use it based on the number of machines.  It is worth the cost IMHO.

 

 

[CapitalCityVendingLLC]

I have heard good things about what southeast treats recommends.  They seem to have a good thing going on.  

 

I may try and use it one day to prekit a couple machines here and there.  My big beef with it (and there's no going around this forever probably) but I am constantly changing what I put in each slot.  this is a "me" problem I know.  I don't have a single planogram for any of my machines.  Now most of the stuff stays the same, but I like the ability to just change something up, and not have to rewrite the planogram, or keep track of it all.  I'm sure one day I'll see the light and do it because I know there are pros that come with doing it the planogram way.

 

When it comes to inventory, I just look in our trailer/warehouse and see what we are low on or don't have.  I then order it.  Once again, I'm sure there's an easier way to do things, but doing it by memory isn't the hardest thing in the world.  Takes me 3-5 minutes.  I do it 1-2 times a week.  Once again, we are constantly changing what we carry, and with the seasonal trends that happen, the par level is always changing.  One month we may only need 3 boxes of an item.  Three months later, we may need 10 boxes of that item.  I just adjust on the fly accordingly.  We only have about 100 machines though so we are kind of small compared to some of ya'll big fish.  

 

I'm sure there will be a day when we are big enough, and have more machines with CC Readers.  That day just hasn't come yet.

[vendcobros]

I built a custom excel system that uses a daily data dump from USA tech to update machine product levels. Each item in each machine has its own par based on sales over the last 3 weeks. The excel tells us how much of each item to stock to get the maximum time between services.

It also organizes and lists low selling items to be removed and replaced with something new and creates a weekly inventory buy based on recent usages.

I've been developing this for about 6 years, it creates a ton of efficiency, cuts down on waste and gets us to accounts right when they need service.

If there's any if you that have 100% of your machines on USA tech I may be able to set you up with the excel for the right price.

We manage around $500k a year with about 55 stops. Just me and my business partner, no employees.

[Healthy Holmes]

Awesome! 

I am interested in seeing what you'd charge for the excel . I've got a demo schedule with parlevel next week but may consider your option instead.

[Lake Cities Vending]

We've been using Parlevel for about 6 months. It does have a learning curve but after learning it I am happy. There are so many different areas of use with it the longer you use it and learn the better it is.

 

[JJs Vending]

What type of machines can ParLevel  work on. Does it work with the much more newer machines? I have Vendo 511's,480's, DN276E up to 501E, and couple of USI soda and snack machines; would that work with them? Any advise would be helpful thanks guys!

[Southeast Treats]

ParLevel works with whatever you have, it's not a device you install, the software is "back office".  If you are thinking about the card reader/ telemetry units, they do sell those as well, works with any mdb machine just like USAT or InOne.  The software accepts data from any company you are using, and also can accept manual data from offline machines, to manage your route. 

As far as vendcobros's program, I'm sure it works pretty well if they are using it and happy enough with it to share.  The problem is they are not in the software business, so there is no tech support or ongoing development.