PDI, a leading provider of enterprise-class automation software systems to the convenience retail, petroleum marketing and foodservice industries, today announced that The Kent Companies completed its rollout of PDI/Lottery.
This latest addition to PDI’s retail product suite significantly reduces the time needed to receive, count, audit, and review scratch-off lottery ticket inventory. PDI/Lottery also enables store personnel to easily manage inventory in vending machines while also reconciling deliveries and activations for books loaded in the machine.
Using proprietary scan technology, c-stores can capture accurate information about lottery inventory while reducing the amount of time spent on the inventory process itself. “Our old method, which required us to count using pen and paper, would take about 30 minutes,” said Ross Gentis, IT manager for The Kent Companies. “With the lottery software, we use the PDI handheld to scan the barcode on each ticket. The process has been reduced from 30 minutes to less than two.”
The barcode on each ticket provides all the information a c-store needs to track the inventory in more detail than traditional item inventory, including game, book and ticket number. Since personnel are not required to manually enter data, there are less opportunities for human error. “The biggest problem we had was that we were spending thousands to recoup five cents. From accounting to store-level staff, we had several people trying to track just one inventory item. Since shifting to this method, the tracking is done every shift, and we have a more accurate view of sales and losses in real time.”
“We are thrilled to serve our customers with this new product,” said Greg Gilkerson, president and CEO of PDI. “Scratch-off lottery tickets are a notoriously high shrink, low margin inventory item. Giving managers the tools to more efficiently and accurately manage that entire process—from receiving to audits—is a huge win, and we’re happy to deliver it.”
The Kent Companies is also using the new wireless capabilities introduced with PDI/Enterprise 8, which allow managers to post counts from the sales floor directly to the back office. The West Texas chain began beta-testing PDI/Lottery earlier this year and recently completed implementation for all 39 Texas-based Kent Kwik sites.
