Cash Accountability Report

Purpose

The Cash Accountability report is the primary instrument for reporting on cash collections. This report can be run in several configurations which provide everything from a daily overview of collection activity to a detailed analysis of vend visit collections by Point of Sale.

This report always provides 3 different measurements of cash accountability. It compares the product vended to the cash collected, the meter readings to the cash collected, and the DEX expected cash to the cash collected. By providing 3 measurements side-by-side, you are provided the best visibility of all cash related issues.

This report should be run daily as an overview of route activity and reviewed by route supervisors or senior management. It should also be run as soon as possible after the cash collection for the day has been counted and posted to the VendMAX database.

Because this is a Cash report, it will only include line items that relate to collect services. If you typically conduct ‘fill-only’ machine services, these will not appear on this report.

Report Parameters

There are several report parameters that are available to help control the configuration of the report and the level of detail that is included in the resulting document. The choice of parameters can dramatically affect the layout and usefulness of the report. Each option is described below, while the Examples and Recommendations section gives some suggestions on useful configurations and the required parameters.

For information on the following standard report parameter, see Report Configuration Overview.

• Date Named Period

Top Level Grouping

This parameter will establish how the data will be grouped and subtotaled. In most cases, you will be most interested in seeing the cash accountability information summarized by route. This is done by selecting the ‘Route’ item in this parameter. The report examples included below each use the Route top-level grouping.

Because VendMAX independently tracks the Driver and Truck from the route, these summary options are also available. As an example, you may choose to use the Driver setting if you are tracking the activity of a jump or vacation driver who has moved through several routes during the summer. In this case, you are able to run a cash report on that driver for the entire summer and see an accumulation of all cash shortages, regardless of which routes they have serviced.

Report Configuration

This parameter will establish the level of detail that will show on the report.

The options are:

• Route, Truck, Driver level – This choice will result in 1 line item per Route appearing in the details area of the report.

• Location Level – This choice will result in 1 line item per Location. It will also subtotal all locations within a route for the date range selected. You can think of this as exploding the next level detail from the Route, Truck, Driver level. Notice in this case that the Totals for Route 2 in this version of the report match the single line totals for the same route in the previous example. This configuration simply provides more detail

• POS Level – This choice will result in 1 line item per POS. It will also subtotal all POS’ within a location for a location summary line, and then also subtotal all locations within a route for a Route summary line. You can think of this as exploding the next level of detail from the Location Level. Notice in this case that the Totals for the “Streamware” location in this version of the report match the single line totals for the same location in the previous example. This configuration simply provides another level of detail.

• Vend Visit Level – This choice will result in 1 line item per Vend Visit. It will also subtotal all Vend Visits within a POS, all POS within a location, and all locations within a route to create summary lines at each of these higher levels. You can think of this as exploding the next level of detail from the POS Level.

Exception Type

This filter is based on the Primary Accountability for each vend visit. It takes effect only when you type in a number under “Exception Amount”. Over: The report will show only vend visits where the primary accountability shows an overage or shortage greater than the Exception Amount. Under: The report will show only vend visits where the primary accountability shows an overage or shortage less than the Exception Amount.

Exception Amount

Used in conjunction with the Exception Type. Filters out overages or shortages under or over the amount entered here.

Filters

While the parameters described above help to control the configuration and level of detail provided in the report, the filters are available for limiting the amount of data that is displayed.

For information on the following standard report filters, see Report Configuration Overview.

• Group Lookup on RTE
• Group Lookup on LOC
• Group Lookup on POS
• Table Lookup on EAU
• Group Lookup on CUS
• Group Lookup on NAT

Table Lookup on EAU:

This filter allows you to select a single employee for which to run this report. EAU stands for Employee And User. This filter is most useful when you are running the report with ‘Top Level Grouping’ set to DRIVER. This is most often used to run Cash Accountability on a swing driver, or during vacation schedules.

Examples

The following examples will be used for a description of how to interpret this report. The first example, below, was run with the following parameter and filter settings:

• From: 5/30/2010
• To: 5/30/2010
• Top Level Grouping: Route
• Report Configuration: Vend Visit Level

Therefore, this is a Cash Accountability report for a single day. It therefore shows each Vend Visit, by route for 5/30/2010. This would normally be run immediately after cash has been counted for this route, and provides a full view of all cash accountability issues for one route for one day.

Data Columns:

Visit Date

This is the date that the Vend Visit was performed. This column only appears when the report is run with the ‘Report Configuration’ set to ‘Vend Visit Level’. In any other configuration, the data contained on each row may be the accumulation of several Vend Visits, and therefore the date field would not have meaning.

Total Cash Collected

This field is the mathematical addition of the Actual Bills and Actual Coin counted in the money room for this Vend Visit. This is the number which is compared to the expected values to form the basis of the Over / Short calculations contained in the PRODUCT, METER, and DEX fields described below.

Fund Change/Recycler

This is a record of any roll coin and bills the driver has reported adding to the coin mech or bill recycler when servicing the machine.

To the left of the hash line, is the amount of rolled coin the driver added to the coin mech. For Handheld users, the route driver typically records this data when servicing a machine into the ‘Change’ field on the handheld. It is also the same number that can be viewed in a Vend Visit record as ‘Change From Fund’. If you typically alternate between Fill-Only services and Collect services, then the Fund Change field will contain the total of all ‘Change From Fund’ values since the last collection.

To the right of the hash line is the dollar value of bills the driver added to the bill recycler. For handheld users, the driver records this data into the ‘RCL’ field on the handheld.  It is also the same number that can be viewed in a Vend Visit as ‘Recylcer From Fund’. If you alternate between Fill-Only and Collected services, the Recycler Fund field will contain the total of all ‘Recycler from fund’ since the last reconciliation.

Refunds

This is a record of any refunds that the driver has reported paying when servicing the machine. For Handheld users, the route driver typically records this data when servicing a machine into the ‘Refunds’ field on the handheld. It is also the same number that can be viewed in a Vend Visit record as ‘Refunds’. If you typically alternate between Fill-Only services and Collect services, then the Refunds field will contain the total of all ‘Refunds’ values since the last collection.

Msg. Cash, Paid Comm, Card Cash

Totals from Missing Cash, Paid Commissions, and Card Cash fields in each vend visit

Product ($ & %)

This is the first of the 3 side-by-side measures of cash accountability. This column of data is properly calculated for any POS that is tracking product movement, either at the item level, or product family level. The expected cash amount is calculated by multiplying the number of vends by the vend price for each product or product family in the machine. This expected cash is then compared to the ‘Revenue Collected’ column to calculate the overage or shortage amount shown in the $ portion of this column. After the slash, this dollar shortage or overage is also shown as a percentage of the total collection.

If there is no product information being tracked for this POS, the report shows this field as N/A.

Metered ($ & %)

This is the second of the 3 side-by-side measures of cash accountability. This column of data is properly calculated for any POS that is tracking a meter value. If the Primary Accountability field in the Vending Equipment record for this machine is set to DEX or to Cash Meter, then the value of Cash Metered sales since the last collection is compared to the Revenue Collected. If the Primary Accountability field in the Vending Equipment record is set to Vend Meter, then the Vend Meter is multiplied by the ‘multiplier, and compared to the Revenue Collected. After the slash, this dollar shortage or overage is also shown as a percentage of the total collection.

If there is no meter being tracked for this POS, or if the meter reading is skipped, or otherwise missing, the report shows this field as N/A.

DEX ($ & %)

This is the third of the 3 side-by-side measures of cash accountability. This column of data is properly calculated for any POS that has either a FULL or CASH ONLY DEX implementation, as set in the Vending Equipment record. The expected cash value is calculated as the mathematical addition of the DEX coin to box and DEX bills to stacker values. This expected cash is then compared to the Revenue Collected to calculate the overage or shortage in the $ field. After the slash, this dollar shortage or overage is also shown as a percentage of the total collection.

If there is no DEX data being tracked for this POS, or if the DEX reading is skipped, or otherwise missing, the report shows this field as N/A.

Primary ($ & %)

This column shows the over/short according to the Primary Accountability set in the vending equipment. If the Primary Accountability set in the Vending Equipment is used for the vend visit, then that column is highlighted. If the Primary Accountability set in the vending equipment could not be used (DEX or meter reading is not taken, for example), then no field will be highlighted and the Cash Collected will show as an overage under Primary Accountability.

What to Look For:

Essentially, the question is, “what can cause overages or shortages in the Product, Metered, and DEX columns, other than employee theft?” Well, there are a few things.

DEX

The DEX data column is the most reliable number, so if your equipment is capable of DEX data output, you use it, and you should rely on this column of data over the others on this report. There are still a few ways that this report will show inaccurate results.

• If the DEX reading is skipped, then the entire amount of the Revenue Collection will show as an overage.
• If your route process is to have the drivers “buy” roll coin from a fund, using bills from the cash collection in the machine, then you should have the fields properly set on the Routes screen in VendMAX to indicate that the driver does NOT “Use Fund for Changers”. If this setting is incorrect, or if the driver does not properly record the use of roll coin for this collection, then the machine could show either an overage or shortage in the amount of the actual roll coin usage.
• If the Vending Equipment is not set up to collect a DEX reading, then this column will appear as $0.00 / 0%, indicating no shortage, where in fact, there is not enough information to attempt to calculate a shortage.
• If the control board has been replaced, or the non-resettable memory has been erased by means of a maintenance event on the machine, then the results may show a huge overage or shortage. These are generally easy to spot because they are typically several orders of magnitude out of range.
• If a mechanic or route driver has taken money from the cash collection and run it back through the machine as a test vend, but this test vend activity was not documented and recorded in the Vend Visit, in VendMAX as ‘Missing Cash’.
• If the driver has sold product to a customer while in the act of servicing the machine, and did not run the money through the normal vend cycle, but threw it into the cash bag.

Metered

This value is most often a calculation of the current cash meter, compared to the previous cash meter. This method of cash reconciliation has been prevalent in vending for many years, and was the best possible solution before the DEX standard was implemented in the early 1990’s. This method has several inherent problems that can cause inaccurate reporting. Some of these are:

• Because the cash meter is a measure of the value of product sold from the machine, and has no knowledge of how much money went into the coin box, as opposed to the coin mech, any difference in the level of the coin mech on this collection, as compared to the coin mech level on the previous service, will show as an overage or a shortage.
• The meter number may be recorded incorrectly, and the expected cash value is therefore inaccurate.
• If the meter reading is skipped, then the entire amount of the Revenue Collection will show as an overage.
• If your route process is to have the drivers “buy” roll coin from a fund, using bills from the cash collection in the machine, then you should have the fields properly set on the Routes screen in VendMAX to indicate that the driver does NOT “Use Fund for Refunds”. If this setting is incorrect, or if the driver does not properly record the use of roll coin for this collection, then the machine could show either an overage or shortage in the amount of the actual roll coin usage.
• If the Vending Equipment is not setup to collect a meter reading, then this column will appear as $0.00 / 0%, indicating no shortage, where in fact, there is not enough information to attempt to calculate a shortage.
• If the control board has been replaced, or the non-resettable memory has been erased by means of a maintenance event on the machine, then the results may show a huge overage or shortage. These are generally easy to spot because they are typically several orders of magnitude out of range.
• If a mechanic or route driver has taken money from the cash collection and run it back through the machine as a test vend, but this test vend activity was not documented and recorded in the Vend Visit, in VendMAX as ‘Missing Cash’.
• If the driver has sold product to a customer while in the act of servicing the machine, and did not run the money through the normal vend cycle, but threw it into the cash bag.

Product

This is a retail value of product vended from the machine. It relies on a proper calculation of the number of vends for each product. The vend count is calculated as the closing inventory from the last service minus the opening inventory from the current service. The opening inventory from the current service is entered directly into the handheld. The closing inventory from the last service is calculated as the opening inventory from the last service plus the added quantity.

Therefore, the proper calculation of the vend count relies on the driver’s input of the beginning inventory, and the added amounts for each product, on each service. If they make a mistake on these numbers, then the system will miscalculate the vend count, and therefore the expected cash. When the driver does enter the data correctly, and the price is set up correctly in the VendMAX PlanOGram, then the metered amount and the product amount on this report should be the same. However, they are both subject to the same potential inaccuracies which are noted above in the Metered section.

Examples & Recommendations:

The Cash Accountability report has been created to provide a variety of detail levels, so that it can be run with only the detail necessary. Therefore, the recommended sequence for this report is as follows:

Every day, after the cash has been counted, run the report with the following parameters:

• From: TODAY
• To: TODAY
• Top Level Grouping: ROUTE
• Report Configuration: Route, Driver, Truck
• No other Filters

The resulting report will look something like this:

Example 2

You can then scan this report to look for routes that had significant shortages that you would like to look into further. If you decided to look at more detail on route 3, you would then run the report that was used as Example 1 in the section above. This then shows you a breakdown of which Points of Sale were short for the day.

If you notice the shortage has come primarily from one Point of Sale, you may choose to run a cash accountability report for that machine, over a wider period of time, to see if the machine is always short, or if over time, the shortages and overages balance out. This would be an especially important technique when researching problems with non-DEX machines. The following example illustrates this report. It was run with the following parameters:

• From: Beginning of Month
• To: End of Month
• Top Level Grouping: ROUTE
• Report Configuration: Vend Visit
• Lookup on POS: Filtered to the POS in question

Example 3

If this research does not reveal the source of the shortage, you may choose to run a report on the driver in question, for all collections over a wide period of time, to see if small shortages are showing up on a variety of machines over a long period of time. This report example would be filtered as follows:

• From: Beginning of Month
• To: End of Month
• Top Level Grouping: DRIVER
• Report Configuration: POS
• Lookup on EAU: Filtered to the DRIVER in question