Vending machine management without telemetry usually ends up as a notebook, a spreadsheet, and unnecessary trips to the warehouse. That’s why we created Repónlo, an in-house project by Consultoría EHERO. It’s an app that tells you what to load, which machine to visit, and how much you’ve sold, from your phone and with nothing to install. Here’s why we built it, what a route looks like with it, and what we’ve taken from it into our custom projects.
Project at a glance
- Brand: Repónlo, by Consultoría EHERO (reponlo.com)
- Who it’s for: small vending operators without telemetry, running 1 to 50 machines
- Platform: web app for phone, tablet, or computer
- Price: free for one machine; plans from €19 per month + VAT
- Data: hosted in the European Union and exportable as CSV
- Language: the app is in Spanish only, for now
The problem: Excel doesn’t know what to load into the van
Large operators use telemetry: their machines report sales on their own. A small operator’s machines don’t; everything depends on what gets written down at each visit. And that’s where the same old problems start:
- You head out with the van half-loaded, or loaded with stock you didn’t need.
- You service a machine that was nearly full and leave the one that’s run empty for another day.
- You find expired products on the tray.
- At the end of the month, you don’t know how much you’ve sold or whether the cash adds up.
A spreadsheet stores the data, but it doesn’t tell you what to do with it tomorrow morning.
What Repónlo is and who it’s for
Repónlo is a web app for vending machine management without telemetry, built for small operators. It runs in the browser, with nothing to install. Sales figures come from work you already do: what you count and load at each visit.
It’s also worth being clear about what it isn’t: it’s not a telemetry system, and it doesn’t issue invoices. It’s the everyday tool for whoever does the restocking.
A vending machine restocking route, step by step
Before you head out: the pick list
You choose the visit day and the machines, and Repónlo tells you how many units of each product to take from the warehouse, in full cases and loose units, to leave the machines full that day, allowing for what will have sold since the last visit. If the warehouse is short, it warns you. You tick items off as you pick them, and you can share or print the list.
At the machine: restocking slot by slot
For each slot, you enter what’s left and what you add, with a button to fill it up. Repónlo works out what was sold and deducts what you loaded from your warehouse stock. If you close the app mid-visit, the draft stays saved on your phone.
Which machine to visit: upcoming visits
Based on each machine’s average sales, Repónlo alerts you before it drops below the fill level you set or several slots run empty, and suggests a day to visit, with a link for directions. The forecast appears as soon as two visits have been recorded and gets more accurate with every restock.
In the warehouse: purchasing, batches, and expiry dates
You can store several suppliers for each product, each with its own price. Repónlo suggests the cheapest one for anything below minimum stock and creates each supplier’s order at the press of a button. Stock you load comes out of the batch that expires first, and you can see everything that expires in the next 30 days. The barcode scanner uses your phone’s camera, so you don’t need a separate reader.
At the end: sales, margins, and cash
You can see sales by machine and by product, plus your margins. If you record meter readings, you also get the month-by-month trend and, each time you collect the cash, whether what you collected matches what the meters show.
If you work with other people, you invite your team by email, and each machine has its regular restockers. You can set it so each restocker only sees their own machines.
How we built it
Repónlo grew out of a real restocking problem, and every improvement is tested out on the route before it’s released. These are the decisions that define it:
- A web app, not an app-store app. Operators open it on any phone, and every improvement reaches them straight away. We explain when a web app makes sense and when an app-store app is the better fit.
- Each company sees only its own data, and we’ve proved it. An automated test sets up two companies and checks that neither can see or touch the other’s data.
- A shared product catalog. When you scan an unknown barcode, Repónlo looks it up in its shared catalog and fills in the name, the brand, and the barcodes for its packs and cases. That data comes from open databases such as Open Food Facts and from product records shared by other operators. Sharing yours is optional, and prices, costs, and sales are never shared.
- Your data is yours. It’s hosted in the European Union, and you can download it as CSV whenever you like.
What we learned (and now apply to other projects)
Start with a real problem
A real route tells you what’s needed better than any feature list.
Data comes from work that’s already being done
If something has to be entered twice, it doesn’t get entered.
Keep customers separate, and prove it
In a multi-company app, data separation is tested before launch, not taken for granted.
Charge as the customer grows
Every plan includes every feature; only the number of active machines changes.
Try it for free
For one machine, Repónlo is free, with no time limit. For more machines, there are three plans, all with the same features:
| Plan | Active machines | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | €0 |
| Plan 5 | Up to 5 | €19 per month + VAT |
| Plan 15 | Up to 15 | €39 per month + VAT |
| Plan 50 | Up to 50 | €79 per month + VAT |
No minimum term. Sign up with your email, no card required. You can buy a plan on the vending machine management product page in our store.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work for vending machine management without telemetry?
Yes, that’s exactly what it’s built for: sales figures come from what you count and load at each visit and, if you record them, from meter readings.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It runs in the browser on your phone, tablet, or computer. On your phone, you can add it to your home screen and open it with a single tap.
Can I import what I already have in Excel?
Yes. Save your spreadsheet as a CSV file and import your products and each machine’s slots. Before saving, Repónlo shows you what it will do with each row, and it doesn’t duplicate anything.
Where is my data stored?
On servers in the European Union. You can download it as CSV from the settings whenever you like.
Does your business run on a spreadsheet?
If your team repeats the same process in Excel every day, we can turn it into a custom app, either a web app or one for the app stores, just as we did with Repónlo. For a rough idea, see how much it costs to build an app.
