I have had my first machine out on location for one week. I have had 45 product vends, 35 of which were vended at $2.00 and 10 were vended at $1.00 (bottled water).

My math:
35 x $2.00 = $70.00
10 x $1.00 = $10.00

Yet, the money I collected equals $32.00.

How could this be? I reset all resettable counters when I placed the machine last week to zero, so the counts are for exactly one week.

If the machine is dropping 2 cans instead of 1, could it be counting both? I have done several test vends, however, and I have never experienced anything other than one can per vend.

Also, I double checked my prices, and the machine will not vend $2.00 drinks unless you deposit $2.00. Getting a $2.00 drink with just $1.00 does not work.

The way I see it, either the machine is not counting accurately, or someone has been able to rig free vends somehow, or someone picked my lock and raided the bill recepticle, although I have not seen any physical evidence to support this theory. However, actual product sales will be verified when I do a physical inventory count this Saturday, so if the product really was not vended and the counts were skewed, I should be able to tell easy enough.

For the next week, I will record sales by the vend count and by the dollar value of sales for each column in the machine. During the 2nd shift, there won't be any (or at least very little) money in the machine to pilfer. I will post the outcome.

[ 04-18-2006, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: bullman ]

Stupid question? Are you counting the change that is collecting in the changer?

Also, if you are test vending, do the test vends count on your counter?

Hey Bullman, check your PMs.

Ya ive had a few sales all in quarters. This is out of the merlin?

If by changer you are referring to the coin tube, then yes - there was $2.00 more in quarters than what I started out with last week. What I collected was $32 in bills and $2.00 in quarters.

did you check to see if your test vends were part of your count?

How new is the machine? The newer the machine, the more advanced the built-in anti-theft devices are...I know the early 90s Coke and Pepsi machines were easily burglarized a number of different ways...

When I collected money the other day, I reset all the "resettable" counters, including for each selection, by row and for the entire machine.

I go back last night to check on things, and daggone it, it had reverted back to the old numbers and added that day's sales to it.

Long story short, I will have to do a physical count of what is in the machine, add to that the amounts on-hand in my garage and subtract that from my purchase amounts. Hopefully, the numbers will match up with the cash I'm collecting.

Meanwhile, I've been in touch with the manufacturer's tech support, and they report no known problems. So, when I get my other machines here in about a week, I will call them back and have them walk me through the whole process just to make sure I'm good to go. I can then make any needed changes to the machine I have already located.

These are brand new machines, and I have also understood that they are, for the most part, very difficult to steal from.

I will continue to update.

No vending machine is difficult to steal from. It only matters on the determination of the thief.