Automatic Age

T h e A u t o m a t ic A ge
those who prefer to count the money
by hand.
There are other small and cheap
devices which claim to count the
coins by judging the height o f a
stack o f pennies. They are not ac­
curate as obviously some pennies are
thicker than others and such a
count will not be accepted by all
banks.
Computing scales calculating the
amount o f money by its weight are
alright in their way, but are not ac­
curate for the same reason. Coins
vary in weight according to the
length o f time that they have been
ln use. Even if they were accurate,
most banks demand that the coins be
wrapped so it would be necessary to
count them all over again and wrap
them when you get home.
The most practical machines are
those which both count the coins
and wrap them on the spot at one
time.
Most operators agree that the best
system o f paying commissions is to
count the money on the spot and
g Jve the merchant his share. I know
° f two other methods, however,
which are being used with success in
different cities.
One operator, whose location own-
€rs have a great deal o f confidence
him, dumps the collections from
each individual location in a small
bag together with the record card o f
the particular machine. When he
Sets home he counts the money in
each bag at his leisure, calculates the
commission due each location and
sends the merchant a check fo r his
share. Needless to say he makes his
collections in a very short time, but
I doubt if most merchants would be
satisfied with a plan like this one.
Another successful • operator fills
his machine completely when it is
first installed. His merchandise comes
ln boxes o f one hundred pieces. He
© International Arcade Museum
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pays hio locations twenty per cent,
but he arranges to do it by paying
them twenty cents fo r each box o f
goods that he puts in the machine
when filling it. I f he uses three
boxes o f goods to fill the machine,
he gives the merchant sixty cents.
B y using this system he does not
have to count his pennies at all. I
think it is a good one where boxed
goods are used.
M y theory o f getting a route in
shape has always been to try all
available locations and weed out
those which do not pay. I described
this system o f installing a route in
my August article. I will now e x ­
plain what I mean by weeding and
how it can be done scientifically.
One side o f your record card
which is made out fo r each machine
should be ruled in multiples o f three
columns. One column fo r the col­
lection date, one fo r the gross
amount o f the collection or sales,
and the other column fo r the num­
ber o f operating days since the pre­
vious collection.
•
Machines are weeded or pulled out
when they do not, after a fair test,
come up to a predetermined daily
sales average. F or the sake o f il­
lustration let us set ten cents a day
gross as our weeding point. Let us
watch each machine that is in a new
location fo r a period o f thirty days.
Now, by reference to our record
cards, we can determine which ma­
chines are not doing ten cents a day
gross. This calculation is made by
dividing the total sales fo r the test
period by the number o f days it was
in operation, the result is the daily
sales average. I f it is below ten
cents, the machine is slated to be
moved to a new location.
A fter a few months all o f your
machines should be doing over ten
cents a day gross. There are then
two courses that you may pursue.
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