Purpose

Subsidized vending provides a way for companies to provide their employees either low prices or, in some cases, no charge for vended products. A good example of subsidized vending would be a business selling 12 oz. cans of soda to their employees for $.25 where the vend operator has determined the soda price to be $.75. The vend operator would then set the subsidy amount in their VMS to $0.50 and later bill the business for the agreed-upon remainder of the price.

The following article is a quick guide to setting up Subsidy groups, assigning products to the groups, and creating and accessing Subsidy Reports, especially for the purpose of sending them as invoices to companies.

Setting Up Subsidy Groups

All Subsidy Groups must be associated with a location, which are tied with Accounts. For help on setting up Accounts, see Accounts.

1. From Settings, go to Vending > Subsidy Groups.

2. Click New Subsidy Group. Then you will add a name and description. Typically names will designate the associated account, and descriptions are the subsidized item types (E.G. Airport Lounge, Drinks). Click Save Changes.

3. Enter the Edit page by clicking on the far right, and from there you can select products to be associated with that subsidy group, either by location (and all of its associated machines), or by specific machine.

4. Create a sub-group by clicking Add Sub-Group, and add the amount you are subsidizing and (optional) an identifying name for the group. (following the example given in the first paragraph: $0.50, Drinks). Select that group by clicking the group title to highlight it.

5. Check off products to be moved into the sub-group with the checkboxes or the blue to the right.

Note: you can only have one sub-group per price point.

6. Once created, machines or markets will need to be assigned to the subsidy group. This can be done by going to the tab Advanced Settings > Assign Subsidy Group. 

For a market, you would navigate to Edit Micro Market > General Info > Assign Subsidy Group, seen below.

Subsidy Reports

Subsidy reports are made from Vending tab > Calculators > Subsidies. Specify a date range, and click the green to run the report. On the top right, click Save Report and confirm. The VMS will automatically redirect you to the Reports, or it can be accessed by going to Analytics tab > Customers > Subsidies. 

These reports include not only the products in sub-groups, but also products that may be sold in the machine that are not subsidized. These will be in their own category distinct from the subsidized items, but can be easily added to a sub-group if needed.

Specify a date range or filter for the appropriate report.

You can mark a subsidy report as Paid, delete it, or, by clicking the account name of the appropriate report, you can view the details of the report.

Under the Options dropdown on the right, you can choose to email or print the reports that have been selected by checkboxes.

The option Print as PDF is especially helpful for collecting the subsidy information in a handy, simple report to be printed or emailed as an invoice.