Load the van in one tap, settle the day down to the last item

The rep rides off in the morning with the store’s goods, and from that moment everything you know about that stock lives in someone’s memory. Canvassing changes that: goods go out as a recorded consignment, the rep sells and collects through an Android app on their phone — one that keeps working when the signal drops — and the day closes with a settlement that reconciles cash and leftover stock together.

Goods leave in the morning; by evening you have “roughly”

The pattern is the same everywhere. A box of parts goes onto the motorbike, jotted on a scrap of paper — or not written down at all. All day the rep sells some amount, collects from some customers, takes back some returns.

At night the report arrives as one sentence: “Sold this much, this much left, here’s the cash.” The numbers rarely close. A small shortfall is shrugged off as normal, the leftover stock gets counted “tomorrow”, a handwritten invoice or two goes missing.

Consigned goods in a rep’s hands are the darkest stock a store owns: the money left at purchase, but the goods can only be asked about, never looked up. And that “normal” little shortfall repeats every day, on every rep.

Goods go out on consignment — the stock stays the store’s

In Automan, a rep’s load is created from the Transaksi → Canvas menu: you pick the items and quantities handed to each rep on consignment. The goods remain the store’s property — what drops is the available quantity, not the ownership.

On the rep’s phone the load appears, and accepting it takes a single tap. No paper signature, no “let me check later”. From that tap onward there is a record of who holds what, how much, and since when. The web side of the flow is walked through in the canvassing trip tutorial, from loading to settlement.

Sell, collect, take returns, note orders — all at the customer’s door

At the customer’s place, the rep does more than sell. From the same phone they can:

• Sell directly from the load, and print the receipt on a Bluetooth printer — the customer holds proof before the rep gets back on the bike.
• Collect receivables that are already on record, instead of collecting from memory.
• Take returns on the spot, so the goods re-enter the count that second.
• Note orders for items not currently on board.

Four field jobs that usually scatter across carbon-copy invoices and chat messages land in the same records the store uses. The rep’s side of it is covered in the field sales on the phone tutorial.

Signal gone? Transactions queue on the phone, invoice numbers never clash

The Automan web app does need the internet — that has not changed. But travelling reps work through the Automan Mobile Android app, which was built for routes where the signal comes and goes: when it drops, transactions are held on the phone and sent by themselves the moment it returns.

Here is the part nobody thinks about until it happens: if three reps are offline at once and all write invoices, do the numbers collide? They do not — each rep carries their own number quota, so invoice numbers never clash no matter how many reps are out of coverage. The customer still walks away with a properly numbered receipt, on the spot.

Goods change hands by QR scan, not by trust

Sometimes stock has to move between reps mid-route — one heads home early, another finishes the round. This is exactly where “I already handed it all over, I swear” is born.

In Automan, a handover between reps happens by scanning a QR code: responsibility for the goods transfers on record, not by word of mouth. And if you want it, that handover can be required to include a proof photo. Goods moving around in the field stops being a matter of two people’s recollection.

The closing settlement: cash and leftover stock, reconciled together

This is the mechanism that separates recorded canvassing from informal van selling. A trip does not end when the rep gets home — it ends at the settlement: cash and leftover goods are reconciled together against what went out that morning.

If there is a shortfall, it is neither left dangling nor quietly erased. You choose its fate, from three options:

1. Merely recorded — the difference is acknowledged and the trail is kept.
2. Charged to the rep — missing goods or cash become that person’s liability.
3. Booked as damaged goods — for items that genuinely came back unsellable.

Whichever you pick, the store’s numbers stay honest. The shortfall surfaces that same evening — not three months later at a stock count, when nobody remembers which trip it was.

You hold the rules, not the rep

Each rep can be given a different set of permissions: whether they may add customers, change prices, collect debts, take returns on the spot, or reload mid-trip. On top of that sit a trip length limit and a credit limit, so trips do not drag on unsettled and field receivables do not swell unnoticed.

Location recording is available too — and it is off by default. It starts only after you switch it on in the Canvassing settings, and even then only while the app is open on screen. Not a tracker; a trip-monitoring tool you enable deliberately.

One more thing worth having: rule changes take effect at once, with no app update needed on the rep’s phone. Setting it all up is covered in the enable Canvassing settings tutorial.

What changes from the owner’s chair

Consignment stops being dark stock. Goods in a rep’s hands are as visible as goods on the shelf: who holds what, since when — looked up, not asked about.

Shortfalls surface the same day. A settlement that reconciles cash and leftover stock together leaves no room for “we’ll count it tomorrow”. The small daily leak that used to evaporate now has a name, a date, and a fate you chose.

Field receivables stop living in someone’s head. What gets collected is a recorded debt, capped by limits you set — not a list in the rep’s memory that leaves when they do.

A tidy store is not one whose reps all happen to be honest. A tidy store is one whose system makes honesty the only practical option.

Start with one rep

No need to launch a whole fleet. Switch the module on, hand a small load to one rep, and watch the first settlement close to the last item. Not ready to try it on your own data? Walk through the Automan demo first, and see what each plan covers on the pricing page.