Initial Situation
A large multinational with 15,000 employees across 22 locations operates 80+ distribution vending machines (office supplies, IT accessories, tools). Each location manages machines separately – no central overview. Approximately 12,000 small orders monthly (average €25) through the machines. Problem: No spending control, no approvals, cost assignment manual (15% error rate). Controllers receive invoices without assignment to locations or cost centers – reconciliation takes days. Suspected maverick buying: employees order via Amazon in parallel – uncontrolled volume unknown.
Your Solution with simple system
- All 80 vending machines are registered
- Each machine receives a unique ID and is assigned to a department/cost center
- Automatic data transfer: 12,000 transactions/month flow automatically into simple system
- Cost Assignment and GL Account Mapping for External Systems: Automatic allocation per location (department → cost center)
- Approval Workflows for External Systems: Automatic approvals for orders <€100 (standard)
- Consolidated Reporting across All Order Channels: Consolidated reporting shows spending per location, department, machine
- Long-Tail Integration: Parallel rollout of Amazon Business for uncontrolled purchases
Result: • 100% of vending machine orders centrally visible
- Allocation accuracy rises from 85% to 99%
- Approval process unified instead of different per location
- Maverick buying reduced to 5% through Amazon Business integration (from ~30% suspected)
- Controller reconciliation: from 3 days to 2 hours
- Monthly cost savings through faster approvals and better negotiations: €5,000-10,000
Your Benefit
- Time savings: Controller reconciliation from 3 days to 2 hours
- EBIT impact: +€9,000/year (controller time) + €9,000/year (error reduction) + €90,000/year (maverick buying reduction) = +€108,000/year
