Prod. Desc.

The Route-EXCELerator workbook template has two components to the application, one runs on any PC with any Windows XP Operating System. The other component is a Daily Data Entry Sheet that runs on any Pocket PC, or any PDA that runs Microsoft Excel.

You create a new Route-EXCELerator workbook each month to manage your route. The application automatically tracks key cost, revenue, inventory, working capital generated, and customer consumption trends for that month.

This is accomplished by entering the items sold for each machine on the route into the “Daily Data Entry Sheet”.

At the end of the day, the Daily Data Entry Sheet is uploaded and copied into the current Route-EXCELerator workbook.

The beverage workbook has a total of 45 tabs, 31 of which are used to copy the Daily Data Entry Sheets (one for every potential day of the month) into the workbook. The snack workbook has a total of 46 tabs, 31 of which are used to copy the Daily Data Entry Sheets (one for every potential day of the month). The rest are Business Management, Graph and utility / maintenance tabs.

The majority of these tabs are completely automated (other than initial set up) and are used to help you manage a growing vending business. All the tabs are described in detail in this website. The links to each tabs description are on the right side of this page.

Tab Description Overviews

Overall Totals Tab: The “Overall Totals” tab is the highest level view of your vending business. It has two sections, the overall route totals, and the business from a day of the month view, giving you the ability to look at the total business performance, review each route, and compare the routes to one another.

The Daily Totals Area of the “Overall Totals” tab, is the high level daily averages and totals including number of days that have vending pick up activity. This section is used to evaluate revenue, by day of the month, and to track which days your revenue targets were met. Thus giving you a starting point to understand the routes coverage from a revenue target point of view, and the ability to adjust your schedules to maximize revenue potential.

Site MTD & Est. Freq. Tab: The “Site MTD & Est. Freq.” tab is the next level down in your look into your vending business. It has 3 sections. The first section is the location / machine name by route identifying the “Price Per Unit” (amount charged per vend, or average price per vend at that machine) and a site fee (commission) if any.

The second section “Month to Date Totals” provides the same information that the “Overall Totals” tab does, but the next level down on an account and machine level.

The third section, “End of Month Review” provides a specialized look at the account performance based on the location level revenue goals that you have set.

Acct. Summary.” Tab: The “Acct. Summary.” Tab provides a snap shot of all accounts within each route. Included are the Route and Account / Machine name, Last Visited date, and all items purchased for that location / machine.

Also if a visit was made to a machine but it was not filled, the date is denoted with a “NF” at the end of the date. If the location was not visited in the month an “N/A” is placed in the cell adjacent to the locations not visited.

Next, there is the “Total (Units) Sold “which has the overall total for the month. Then each location / machine total going down the column. This is followed by the individual brand totals.

Monthly Visit Summary Tab: The “Monthly Visit Summary.” Tab is a summary of dates of each visit made to each account / machine. The tab has week 1 through 5 for the possible weeks in a month. As Daily Data Entry information is loaded into the workbook, this tab is automatically updated with the date of the visit.

V-Hist. Tab: The “V-Hist.” Tab is a detail of customer / machine visits for the month. As Daily Data Entry information is loaded into the workbook, this tab is automatically updated with the date of the visit. It assumes only one visit per day. If a visit was made to a machine but it was not filled, the date is denoted with a “NF” at the end of the date. This sheet has the same locations / Machines within Route format as the other sheets, and then moving to the right, Days 1 through 31. Where each visit is denoted in the appropriate row for the customer, it assumes one visit per day.

Product Sales Tab: The “Product Sales” Tab is a monthly picture of Product Sales by brand within Route and Customer / Machine. This sheet has the same locations / Machines within Route format as the other sheets. This tab is automatically updated with the product sales information through out the month. Each column after the “Totals” column is a brand, with the total sales for that brand. Under the total sales for the brand, are the total sales for customer / machine.

Daily Sales Sheets 1-31” Tabs: The “Daily Sales Sheets 1-31” Tabs are used to receive the copy of the daily data entry sheet (From the Pocket PC) into the Route-excelerator workbook. This sheet has the same locations / Machines within Route format as the other sheets. The third column to the left is the “N=No Refill” indicator column. If an “N or n” was placed next to a location, it triggers a date visited to be generated with a “-NF” suffix on all the date tracking tabs. This indicates that the location was visited but there was no product filled in the machine.

Monthly Settings” Tab: The “Monthly Settings” tab is used to set overall Route-excelerator workbook values. It has four settings cells: “Current Month” to set the current month, “Days in Current Month” to set the correct number of calendar days in the current month, “Target Daily Revenue” to set your revenue targets on a daily basis, and Target Monthly Location/Machine Revenue” to set your revenue targets for your Location/Machines on a monthly basis.

Next there are five utilities that are used primarily to create each months workbook.

The Clear Daily Tabs (1-31) Data Input Area utility is used to clear out all the data input areas on all of the “Daily tabs 1-31”.
The “Delete a Customer / Machine Name Line” Utility is used to remove a Location/Machine name line from all related tabs.
The “Insert a Customer / Machine Name Line” Utility is used to add a new Location/Machine name line to all related tabs.
The “Delete a Product” Utility is used to remove a product or brand from the workbook.
The “Insert a Product” Utility is used to add a product or brand to the workbook.

Product Purchases Tab: The “Product Purchases” tab is where you enter your product inventory purchases during the month. The specific purchase information is entered in the Blue cells. Date Purchased, Purchase Source, Total Cost (Amount of Invoice).

Product Inventory Tab: The “Product Inventory” Tab is the tab that you use to track your total inventory.

Top Products Graph Tab: The “Top Products Graph” Tab is created automatically as the daily data entry sheets are copied into the Daily Sales Sheet Tabs 1 through 31.

Revenue by Route Graph Tab: The “Revenue by Route Graph” Tab is created automatically as the daily data entry sheets are copied into the Daily Sales Sheet Tabs 1 through 31.

Pick List Tab: The Pick list Tab is an automated way to create a driver pick list from historical data. The List is created simply by typing an "X" in the blue column, which will automatically pull in the products and quantities ordered from the previous deliveries.

Vend-Price Tab: The Vend-Price Tab is used in the multi-pricing version of the Route-Excelerator, and is used to maintain the Price per vend information for each product within each machine.

Product $$ Tab: The "Product $$" Tab is used in the multi-pricing version of the Route-Excelerator, and is used to Track the revenue per product across all the accounts and machines.

Customer Info Tab: The 'Customer Info' Tab is used maintain important information on your customers.

Column Assign Tab: The 'Column Assign' Tab is used only in the Snack version of the Route-Excelerator and is used to maintain the specific column or spiral Product assignments for each machine.