Analytics and Inventory Forecasting for Vend

Lokad can be seen as an add-on for Vend. We deliver advance inventory forecasting, commerce analytics and pricing optimization. Lokad is an app, like Vend, with a monthly subscription. Vend-powered merchants typically get started with Lokad either to consolidate analytics from multiple Vend accounts (franchise) or to optimize their inventory, that is, increase service levels while reducing inventory levels in the same time. Don't hesitate to request a free demo; while we strive to make Lokad as simple as possible, franchise analytics and inventory optimization tend to be inherently complex.

The data from Vend can be imported in just a few clicks into Lokad thanks to a native integration that leverages the Vend API. In this page, we details how to make the most of this native Vend integration.

Vend authorization    Franchises (multiple Vend accounts)    Vend concepts vs Lokad concepts    Setup of the inventory settings    Data retrieved from Vend       Lokad_Items.tsv       Lokad_Orders.tsv       Lokad_PurchaseOrders.tsv

Vend authorization

In order to import your Vend data into Lokad, you need a Lokad account. If it's not already done, you can get one at no cost in 60s. Then, when you log into your Lokad account for the first time, you will be proposed to establish a connection with multiple data sources, Vend being one of them. In particular, this wizard page will redirect you to a webpage within your Vend account. There, you will need to confirm that you grant a data access to Lokad. Once you've granted the access to Lokad within Vend, you are redirected to Lokad, and now a new option should appear within the connector list. Click this option, and you are done setting-up the link between Vend and Lokad.

Two remarks:

• our data retrieval logic is read-only. Your Vend data will not be modified in any way by Lokad. In the future, if Lokad were to add write capabilities for Vend, we will make it very explicit whenever your are about to change anything within Vend.
• your company remains the sole owner of your data. By default, we treat this data as if an NDA was in place between your company and Lokad. If you want an actual NDA to be signed, just drop us a message.
  

In order to revoke the authorization given to Lokad to access your Vend data, you should go into your Vend account and navigate Setup » Add-ons and the click Revoke on the Lokad entry.

Franchises (multiple Vend accounts)

Lokad allows a franchise to plug multiple Vend accounts into a single Lokad account. This setup allows to create analytics for the network as a whole, and per outlet too; but this setup also allows the franchises to keep an operational control over their individual Vend accounts. It is also possible to share the Lokad dashboards with franchisees without giving them access to the primary Lokad account.

Once an authorization to access a Vend account is given to Lokad, Lokad remains capable of pulling the data from this account until the authorization is revoked. In practice, this means that the authorization operation has only to be performed once, and not every time the Lokad needs to refresh the data. Also because Lokad is using the app store of Vend to authenticate, the authentication is not lost when Vend user passwords are changed.

As far pricing is concerned, Lokad is charging based on the revenue. We typically use the Vend data itself to figure out in which price range your companies lie. However, many companies (ex: a gym) also sell services through Vend, such as membership subscriptions. When calculating the applicable Lokad fee, we typically exclude the portion of the turnover which not related to commerce activities. However, when multiple Vend accounts are plugged into Lokad, we would look at the total commerce activity summed over all franchisees.

The setup for a Vend franchise can be done swiftly with Lokad, but because every franchise tends to have its own specificities, the setup can be a bit technical. We suggest to contact us to let our staff performs the onboarding on your behalf.

Vend concepts vs Lokad concepts

Vend is structured around the notion of registers, products and outlets. Each product can be stored in one or more outlets. Lokad has the concept of inventory items where items can be used to reflect SKUs, barcodes or products depending on the situation. In the case of Vend, Lokad performs its analysis for each pair outlet+product, in order to support an inventory optimization at the stock level.

Setup of the inventory settings

The inventory forecasting logic of Lokad requires two settings to be provided, namely the lead times (in days) and the service levels (in percent). At this point of time Vend does not support yet the possibility to create custom properties for products, thus, Lokad cannot retrieve this information from Vend. The inventory forecasting engine offers the possibility to define default values, but this is crude and provides no differentiation among variants.

Thus, Lokad offers an alternative path to manage those settings within your Lokad account. The process consists of creating a settings Excel sheet. This sheet becomes the repository of the inventory settings that should drive your inventory forecasting report. Through this sheet is becomes possible to adjust the inventory settings down to the product level.

Data retrieved from Vend

Lokad retrieves extensive data from Vend which include:

• All products with the brand, the supplier, the stock on hand, the selling price.
• The sales order history with the quantity, the net amount, the tax amount, the client.
• The purchase order history with the quantity, the net amount, the delivery date, the supplier, the status.
  

Those data are pushed into 3 flat files named Lokad_Items.tsv, Lokad_Orders.tsv and Lokad_PurchaseOrders.tsv within your Lokad account.

Lokad_Items.tsv

The file Lokad_Items.tsv contains the columns:

• Id: synthetic identifier that combines Ref and Loc
• Ref: the SKU code
• Loc: the name of the location
• Name: the name of the product
• Variant: the options of the variant
• Sku: same as Ref
• Category: the product type
• Brand: the product brand
• StockOnHand: the stock count
• StockOnOrder: inferred from the stock movement, the incoming quantity
• StockAvailable: same as StockOnHand
• CurrentReorderPoint: the reorder point
• Supplier: the name of the supplier
• SupplierLeadTime: inferred from the stock movements
• OrderingLeadTime: inferred from the stock movements
• LeadTime: inferred from the stock movements
• IsForecasted: boolean at true if the product is marked as active, false otherwise.
  

Lokad_Orders.tsv

The file Lokad_Orders.tsv contains the columns:

• Id: identifier combining the outlet ID and the product ID
• ProductId: the identifier of the product
• Location: the identifier of the outlet
• Date: the creation date of the order
• Quantity: the quantity of the order line
• NetAmount: the total charged for this order line, tax excluded
• TaxAmount: the total tax charged for this order line
• Client: the identifier of the client
  

Lokad_PurchaseOrders.tsv

The file Lokad_PurchaseOrders.tsv contains the columns:

• Id: identifier combining the outlet ID and the product ID
• ProductId: the identifier of the product
• Location: the identifier of the outlet
• Date: the creation date of the purchase order
• DeliveryDate: the reception date of the procurement matching the purchase order
• Quantity: the quantity of the purchase order line
• Received: the number of units received
• NetAmount: the amount charged for this purchase order line, tax excluded
• Supplier: the name of the supplier
• Status: the status of this purchase order