Hurleys charity boxes

[Newleaf]

Hi Lee

It was a couple of days short of 4 weeks.

[Vendition Ltd]

I always tell the site owner that they are not responsible for losses and if the boxes are down I ask them if they can re-site it nearer to the till area or to keep an eye on it. If it is down on 3 or 4 visit then I remove box and re-site.

In addition to losses you also find that around 5% of boxes make gains which helps off-set losses, if it was the site owner I would ask them kindly not to but there is not a lot you can do if the customer over pays by a few pennies, the most I have been up was £2 at one site so we are not talking loads.

Did a nice round today and collected £265 over 28 sites and losses were only around 5%.

Well done Richard,

How many hours did it take you on this day? So your profit was about £120 right?

Cheers

Ross

[Newleaf]

Hi Ross

Had to drop my daughter off at pre-school at 9am and this particular round is one of the furthest from home a drive of 45 mins so arrived there around 10am parked in town centre car park and collected from 5 shops and then drove around the the surrounding area where most of boxes are located and finished around 2pm, I had a couple not in this area which were on my way home who had called the day before to say they had run out so did these as well, got home around 3.30pm. Spent an hour packing new boxes to be dropped off for Monday.

Yes profit day was £265 x 50% = £132.50 less shortages on average I allow around 10% which brings it down to around £120 less diesel (14p x 100 miles) £14 so net profit £105 ish. O.K I haven't allowed for other motoring costs like insurance and tax but you get the idea.

[Rossi fan]

Hi Ross

Had to drop my daughter off at pre-school at 9am and this particular round is one of the furthest from home a drive of 45 mins so arrived there around 10am parked in town centre car park and collected from 5 shops and then drove around the the surrounding area where most of boxes are located and finished around 2pm, I had a couple not in this area which were on my way home who had called the day before to say they had run out so did these as well, got home around 3.30pm. Spent an hour packing new boxes to be dropped off for Monday.

Yes profit day was £265 x 50% = £132.50 less shortages on average I allow around 10% which brings it down to around £120 less diesel (14p x 100 miles) £14 so net profit £105 ish. O.K I haven't allowed for other motoring costs like insurance and tax but you get the idea.

Hi Richard,

Just wondering. Are you claiming your .45 p mileage allowance up to 10k and .25 thereafter.

Thanks,

Paul

[Newleaf]

Hi Paul

Yes I claim mileage allowance on my self-assessment return, the above figures are more like the actual cost of the diesel used to show actual monies coming in to the business. The mileage allowance is really just a figure to write off against tax and does not reflect cash flow.

[Vendition Ltd]

I decided to be a limited company so don't claim mileage instead claim all my motor expenses so diesel/servicing etc etc

£100 isn't too bad for a few hours work Richard, I do however think you would have a better return if you had towers but then there is a lot of **** that comes with the tower business apart from the obvious which is the costs involved in starting up so think what you have done is a great starting block.

For me I would carry on until 5:00 p.m and maybe get to 50 sites and earn £180

regards

Ross

[chcvending]

Some good info here , Have not considered HB`s but it looks worth bearing in mind for the future.

[choice vending]

To both choice vending and newleaf

With regards to your losses do you charge the customer? I have had 2 of my customers which have both got macmillan honesty boxes and the operator has made them feel guilty by telling them that some money is missing from the box, and the customer has had to pay that missing amount. I told my customers to get rid of them as this is not good practice in my book and they have agreed to do so. But just wondering if this is common in this type of vending.

Lee.

Hi Lee Yep the gulity thing had happened to us also. If for instance it was a shop with the box on the counter What we would do is to point out there is some money missing and ask them to keep an eye on it. If they want to pay the extra we will take it but we dont charge them. Now say he box was in a small office we would be more assertive because its obvious that the people in the office have taken the sweets. Another sinario we walked into my mates cycle shop 15 packs of sweets gone and no money in the box "Is it in the till" Lisa said, and he paid us laughing while we were having some banter having a laugh and taking the ****. I could have walked out 15 quid short if we didnt say anything. He had run out of change and forgot to put the money back in the box.