One group, many operators: running a vending network from head office
Distributors and franchise groups need two views at once: the whole network from head office, and each member's own business on its own. Click through a group and see both.
In short
- Many vending businesses aren't one company but a group: a head office with regional operators or partners underneath.
- In CleaVend, head office can see across the group, while each member company works in its own separate account.
- Head-office staff can be given access to all members, or only to the ones they look after.
The vending industry has always been full of networks. A distributor supplies and supports several local operators. A franchise brand has partners in different regions. A larger operator has grown by taking over smaller ones, and still runs them as separate businesses with their own teams and customers.
Each of these shapes asks the same thing of its software: let head office see the whole picture, and let every member run its own business without seeing anyone else's.
Two views, at the same time
In CleaVend, a group is set up as a head-office account with member accounts underneath — we call them sub-clients. Each member gets its own CleaVend: its own machines, products, sales, people and settings. Its staff log in and see their company, and only their company.
Head office, meanwhile, sits above them. Click around the group below to see what each company's people see when they open CleaVend.
Who sees what in a group
An example group with made-up names and figures.
What head office gets
From head office, the group is one picture. A group manager can see how many machines every member runs, where the open faults are and how sales are going, and then open any member's account to look closer — without asking for a login or waiting for a monthly report.
Not everybody at head office needs all of that. A regional lead might only look after the northern partner. So head-office staff are given access member by member: all of them, two of three, or just one. Switch the demo to Regional lead, North only to see the difference.
What each member keeps
For the member companies, belonging to a group doesn't mean giving up their independence. Each keeps:
- Its own fleet — machines, products, prices and planograms.
- Its own team — users, roles and machine groups, managed by its own administrator.
- Its own details — address and business information, kept with the member, not the group.
- Its privacy from other members — North never sees South's sales, and the other way round.
One administrator per member, or one for all. A member can run its own account, or head office can look after it for them. Many groups do both: larger partners run themselves, smaller ones lean on head office.
Why it matters
Without a setup like this, groups usually end up with one of two compromises. Either everyone shares one big account, and every partner can see every other partner's business. Or every partner has a completely separate system, and head office spends the first week of every month collecting spreadsheets.
A group should feel like one network to head office, and like their own business to every member.
With CleaVend, a new member can join the group without changing how anyone else works. Head office sees one more company in its view; the new member gets a CleaVend of its own from day one. As the network grows, it stays organised — and everyone keeps looking at exactly the part of it that's theirs.