Par levels and pre-kit

Filling every machine to the top on every visit sounds safe, but it costs you: slow sellers sit in the machine until they pass their best-by date, and drivers carry boxes back and forth. Pre-kit means packing exactly what each machine will need before the van leaves. TicketStacker works it out from two things you already have: each product's par and the machine's recent sales.

Par: how many the machine should hold

A product's par is how many of it the machine should hold when it's full. TicketStacker takes it from the first of these it finds:

1. The planogram. If a slot holds the product, its capacity is the par. When a product is in more than one slot, their capacities add up. Change these with Edit planogram on the machine (see Machines).
2. A par you typed. On the machine's page, type a number in the Par column. Clear the box to go back to the stock import's number.
3. The stock import. The PAR from the machine's last SandStar or Nayax stock report.

Imports never overwrite a par you typed. Under each par, the page says where it came from (Planogram, Typed here or Stock import), or No par when there isn't one.

Forecast: what it will sell before the next visit

TicketStacker looks at the last 28 days of sales for each product in each machine and works out how many it sells a day (the Sells column). Then:

Forecast = sold a day × days until the next visit × forecast factor

Set these two numbers in Par and forecast on the machine's page, then click Save forecast settings:

• Visit every (days): how often a driver stops at this machine. Leave it empty for every 7 days.
• Forecast factor: 1 means "bring what the forecast says". Use 1.2 to bring 20% more (a busy season, an event at the location) or 0.8 to bring 20% less (a holiday week). Many vending companies call machines that share a factor "pre-kit groups".

A machine with less than 28 days of sales is averaged over the days it has. A machine with no sales at all in the last 28 days (a brand new one, or one whose sales feed stopped) has no forecast yet, so it's simply filled to par.

Suggested: what to pick

Suggested = the smaller of par and the forecast (rounded up), minus what's in the machine after the bring-backs come out

It's never less than zero, and it never fills past par. If a product has no par and no sales, the suggestion falls back to SandStar's own restock number. The machine page shows Suggested next to To restock (SandStar's number), so you can compare.

Bring back: what to pull out

Bring back lists units the driver should take out of the machine:

• anything already past its best-by date;
• dated units that will pass their best-by date before the next visit, beyond what the machine will sell by then;
• every unit of a product that hasn't sold at all in 28 days (while the rest of the machine is selling).

Best-by dates come from the dates you enter when receiving and counting stock (see Inventory). Without dates, only the "not selling" rule applies.

Make a pre-kit pick list

Go to Pick lists, then New pick list, or click Restock this machine on a machine. Choose the machines, then how to fill the quantities:

• Pre-kit from par and sales (the default): each line needs the Suggested amount, and the list includes what to bring back.
• Use SandStar's restock numbers: fills every product back to full, the way pick lists always worked.

Each machine shows how many units it needs and how many to bring back, so you can see the difference before you click Make pick list. On the pick list, By machine shows each line's par, what was in the machine, the forecast and the suggestion when the list was made, next to its slot. The Bring back section lists what to pull from each machine and why.

On the road

In Driver view, each stop shows Bring back under What to bring: the product, how many, why, and which slot it's in. Tick each one as you pull it. When the machine has an open pick list, its bring-backs come from that list; otherwise they're worked out when the page loads.

Bring-backs aren't taken out of the machine's stock by TicketStacker: the machine's next stock report shows them gone. Put good units back on the warehouse shelf and count them in your next warehouse count.