Vendor Sales Slip

Vendor sales often go undocumented because of concerns about vendor privacy and difficulty in collecting the information, but it’s imperative that market managers have access to this information. Yet without sales information, you can’t to make informed decisions about market operations, or accurately demonstrate your market’s impact on its vendors and local economy.

Many markets have found that using anonymous sales slips allows them access to vendor sales data, without making vendors uncomfortable. This document will outline the implementation of an anonymous vendor sales slip system, however, if you prefer to track the sales at the vendor level without anonymity, the process and workbooks are easily adaptable. Simply include the business or farm name of your vendors where the workbooks ask for Vendor Sales Slip ID, and ask your vendors to include their name on their own Vendor Sales Slips.

1. Prepare the Materials

• + Customize the Vendor Sales Slip to reflect your market’s name, and the payment methods used by vendors. Delete any unused payments methods in the Vendor Sales Slip Word document, and hide those same columns in the Vendor Sales Slip Record Excel workbook.
• + Obtain a canister or box where vendors will be asked to deposit their completed Vendor Sales Slips each market day. Post a sign or label on the canister or box, so its purpose is clear. Vendors should feel confident that they’re putting their sales slip in the correct place, even if you aren’t nearby to confirm.
• + Print a list of all vendors to place next to the canister or box, so vendors can check themselves off when they submit their slips. This can be printed from the Vendor Attendance sheet of the FMM Data Entry Workbook.
• + Print enough Vendor Sales Slips for all of the vendors who will attend your upcoming market day, with a couple extras for anyone who misplaces their slip.

2. Prepare Your Vendors

• + If the vendors are to provide you with accurate information, they’ll need to know that their data will be used responsibly, and will provide a real benefit to the market.
• + Vendors should understand exactly how you will use their sales data. This is best accomplished in person at an annual vendor meeting, or in a market day “behind the table” chat, wherever vendors will feel comfortable asking questions. Explain how it will help you make better management decisions (by knowing which promotions are working, and what other factors are impacting sales), and connect with new partners who can help support market operations (by demonstrating the economic value of the market’s work). Show an example of the type of summary report where the data will appear.
• + Show examples of the Vendor Sales Slip, and describe the process. Vendors will complete the Vendor Sales Slip to the best of their ability at the end of every market day, fold the slip in half, place it into the marked box or canister at the market info booth, and check their name off of the list for the day. If the slip cannot be submitted at the end of the day, it may be submitted at the beginning of the following market day.
• + If your market uses tokens and a central point-of-sale device for processing credit, debit or federal nutrition benefits (we’ll call this your central terminal), explain that these sales will be recorded in the first column of the Vendor Sales Slip. If a vendor has their own point-of-sale device, and processes credit, debit, or EBT on an individual level, those sales will also be included in the first column the vendor sales slip where noted.
• + The second column of the Vendor Sales Slip can be used for managing reimbursements for those markets that offer daily reimbursements for their vendors.

3. Implementation

• + Distribute the Vendor Sales Slips to each vendor at the beginning of every market day, by visiting each vendor. Remind them of the process and the need to turn the slip in before they leave for the day. If you are missing their slip from the previous week, ask for their completed slip at this time.
• + Place the canister or box in an easy to view location (at the market booth or other central location), with a vendor list and pen or pencil easily accessible. It may be useful to walk the canister around the market at the end of the day, to collect sales slips, and remind vendors to complete them.
• + At the end of the market day, assign each of the completed sales slips a number, and enter them individually into the Vendor Sales Slip Record Workbook. Numbering the slips, and entering them each into the workbook will allow you to check your work, and take note if something is off, or if a sales slip was missed.
• + If you operate a central terminal for credit, debit or federal nutrition benefit sales, reference the Central Terminal Transaction Report supplied by your service provider (most are available online), to enter your sales information from that market day into the Vendor Sales Slip Record workbook.
• + The Vendor Sales Slip Record workbook will calculate the day’s sales totals, and will automatically populate them in the FMM Data Entry Workbook.