How a $30M CPG Company Managing 2,500+ Vending Machines Eliminated 80+ Hours of Monthly Revenue Share Processing and Recovered $73,800 a Year in Operations Capacity
A $30M CPG company managing 2,500+ vending machines across 92 locations was spending 80+ hours of staff time every month manually processing revenue share reports, copying machine sales data into location-specific Excel files manually. By partnering with WorkAgentic and deploying a custom desktop automation tool, the company eliminated the manual process entirely, freed nearly 1,000 staff hours per year, and delivered an error-free, audit-ready revenue share run in under two hours, every month.
The Challenge: 92 Locations, 2,500 Machines, and 80+ Hours of Staff Time Lost Every Month
The company managed active machine placement agreements across shopping malls, military bases, sports facilities, and public venues, each with its own contractual terms and its own Excel reporting file. Every month, two operations staff members logged into the portal, downloaded a machine-level sales export, and manually copied the relevant figures into each of the 92 location-specific revenue share sheets, one by one. The process consumed 80+ hours of staff time every single month and was structurally fragile. Machine naming conventions differed between the portal and the location sheets, column layouts varied across files, and per-location calculation logic differed between sites.
Key pain points included:
- 80+ hours of staff time consumed every month by manual data transcription across 92 location files, with no automation in place and no scalable path forward
- Machine name mismatches between the portal export and the location sheets required manual record matching before any data entry could begin
- Inconsistent column layouts across 92 files meant the process could not be templated or standardized without handling exceptions file by file
- Per-location calculation rules varied between sites, with some applying a percentage of sales and others a fixed rate per machine count, requiring staff to apply the correct logic manually for each location
- Three locations required a separate cash sales figure sourced and entered independently, adding a secondary data pull to those runs
- Decommissioned machine rows had to be identified and skipped manually to prevent inflated or incorrect totals from entering the final reports
- Hard deadline on the 10th of each month left no recovery window if errors were discovered after files had been distributed
The Goal: A Fully Automated Monthly Run That Handles Every Exception Without Human Involvement
The operations team was not looking to replace their portal or move away from their existing Excel-based location files. They needed a solution that could run the existing process automatically, correctly, and completely. Specifically, they needed a tool that could:
The objectives included:
- Match machine records to the correct location files automatically, resolving naming mismatches without manual intervention
- Apply the correct per-location calculation logic across all 92 sites without configuration required each month
- Handle every known layout exception automatically, including cash column insertions, hidden row skipping, and decommissioned machine exclusions
- Preserve originals, saving completed outputs to a separate folder so source files were never touched or overwritten
- Generate a full reconciliation record after every run documenting every match, skip, and exception with specific reasons
- Run as a standalone desktop application with no IT involvement, no new software licenses, and no changes to existing workflows
The Solution: A Guided Desktop Application That Runs the Entire Monthly Process in Under Two Hours
Work Agentic designed and built a custom Windows desktop application delivered as a single standalone executable. Staff open the tool, complete a four-step guided wizard to select their files, confirm machine mapping counts, and initiate processing. Everything after that is handled automatically. The approach included:
The approach included:
- Building an intelligent machine-matching engine that reconciles portal export naming conventions against location file naming conventions, surfacing unmatched records for staff review before processing begins
- Deploying a per-location rules engine that reads the correct calculation methodology for each site and applies it consistently across every row
- Implementing automatic exception handling for every known layout variation, including cash sales columns, decommissioned row skipping, and RS-type calculation logic
- Writing all completed outputs to a dedicated folder with originals preserved intact and never overwritten
- Generating a Reconciliation Report after every run listing every matched record, skipped row, and exception with a specific reason code
- Delivering the entire solution as a single .exe file requiring no IT involvement, no new infrastructure, and no software licenses
Results: 80+ Hours Reduced to Under Two Hours, Errors Eliminated, and Every Exception Handled Automatically
From the first month of deployment, the entire revenue share reporting process ran end to end without manual intervention. The impact was immediate across operations, finance, and deadline compliance.
Key outcomes included:
- Monthly processing time dropped from 80+ hours to under two hours, with no manual steps remaining
- Nearly 960 staff hours per year were freed from manual data transcription and returned to operations capacity
- Human error was eliminated across all 2,500+ machine records, removing manual data entry, formula errors, and missed row exclusions from the process entirely
- Every monthly exception is now handled automatically, including cash column insertions, decommissioned row skipping, and RS-type calculation logic
- Hard deadline compliance became a non-issue. The tool completes a full run in under two hours, giving the team a reliable window to review, approve, and distribute on time every mont
- A full reconciliation audit trail is generated automatically after every run, documenting every match, skip, and exception with specific reasons
- The application deployed with zero IT involvement, zero infrastructure changes, and zero changes to existing Excel files or portal workflows
The result: $63,800 in annual net savings, a monthly revenue share process that runs itself, and an operations team no longer anchored to 80+ hours of manual data entry every month
Revenue Share Automation Savings Schedule
Case Study: $30M CPG Company
| Savings Category | Annual Value |
|---|---|
| Manual Labor Eliminated | $73,800 |
| Gross Annual Savings | $73,800 |
| Cost of Revenue Share Tool | ($10,000) |
| Net Annual Savings | $63,800 |
| Return on Investment | 6.4× |
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