Distrib — the twelve domains

What the Distrib facet does, domain by domain.

In detail

Three ideas run through the twelve domains that follow.

• One piece of software for every machine: what distinguishes a fridge from a bar is configuration, never code.
• The machine authorises, the cloud settles: no charge without a recorded fact, and offline, only latency changes.
• Hardware is declared: plugging in a real lock instead of a simulator is a configuration change.

1. Points of sale, sites, organisations

A point of sale is a business identity — not a machine. That distinction carries everything else.

• Replacing the machine loses nothing: neither sales, nor configuration, nor history.
• The type is immutable: changing it means withdrawing then re-declaring.
• Two lifecycles: the business status, and the core one.
• The site carries the time zone, which governs the days in reports.
• Cascading configuration: the type's defaults, then the point of sale's override.
• The "changed, not published" gap is visible everywhere.
• A point of sale serves several organisations, with a priority order.
• A sale with no point of sale is attached by hand, never guessed.
• Hybrid fleet: a machine of another brand enters through a connector.

2. Catalogue

The product describes what it is; the effective price lives in the offer.

• One catalogue per account, shared by every type of machine.
• Selling by measure: by item, by kilo or by litre.
• VAT in classes, never in rates: an old sale keeps its rate.
• Rates are never changed in place.
• Expiry dates: alerts, unsellability, and automatic markdown as the date nears.
• First-class allergens, with personal exclusion on the consumer's side.
• Tags: the single mechanism for targeting a discount or composing a deal.
• Several merchants in one machine, each with their payout.
• You archive, you never delete.
• Spreadsheet import with a line-by-line error report.

3. Offers and publication

The offer says what this machine sells, at what price, laid out how.

• Two layouts: a shelf plan, or a menu.
• Dated offers, editable: immutability lives in the publication.
• The assortment in place is what the driver actually loaded.
• Publishing is an explicit act: nothing is distributed implicitly.
• A signed snapshot that the machine verifies before applying it.
• An inconsistent snapshot is refused: the machine keeps the previous one.
• Automatic delivery when a device is bound to an already published point of sale.
• Revocation: with the binding closed, the machine refuses to sell.
• Visual editor by drag and drop, with a comparison before publishing.

4. Selling and pricing

The price is computed twice — on the machine and in the cloud — and both must agree to the cent.

• The same library on both sides: an identical result.
• A standard order: product discounts, deals, basket discount, then subsidy.
• Exact allocation: the sum of the parts equals the amount, with no privileged line.
• A discount never takes the total below zero.
• Each receipt recomputes identically: it cites its offer and its publication.
• A doubtful sale goes under review instead of being charged.
• A closed list of reasons: low trust, quota, price discrepancy, quality sample.
• The verdict is logged with the person who made it.
• Offline, the sale is never blocked: the price shown is what stands for the customer.
• Sentinel: a forced door becomes a valued loss, never a charge.

5. Promotions and benefits

Four objects, not to be confused.

• The discount is an automatic rule.
• The deal is a bundled price.
• The subsidy is a third-party payer: it reduces the amount due, not the VAT.
• The promotional code is triggered manually.
• A credit voucher is not a promotion: it is a means of payment.
• Targeted discounts by tag, time slot, or approaching expiry date.
• The quota is never exceeded, even when several machines sell at once.
• Employer subsidy by time slot, flat or as a percentage.
• An offline over-subsidy is never charged back to the consumer.
• Basket simulator to check a rule before publishing it.

6. Payment

• An isolated module: the rest of the product never reads its data.
• A single concept for anything holding value: wallet, voucher, credit note, subsidy, debt.
• Append-only entries, and an atomic debit with no overdraft.
• Settlement in several parts, in priority order.
• A replay resumes, it never charges twice.
• Debt is recovered at the next top-up, automatically.
• An anonymous sale creates no debt.
• A simulated provider plays the same contract as the real one, for demonstrations.

7. Consumers

The end customer has an account, means of recognition, and a space of their own.

• Badge, personal code or bank card as an identifier.
• You revoke, you do not delete.
• Unknown badge: the machine shows a four-digit code to enter in their account.
• A refusal says why: insufficient funds, unpaid, badge required, disabled account.
• Rate or report a problem from the receipt, with a manager's explained decision.
• Consumer space: wallet, purchases, receipts, badges, automatic top-up.
• Order and collect by time slot, possibly by a third party.
• Opening by visual code, with no application to install.
• Anonymisation: identifiers stay for accounting, personal data goes.
• Refused if a balance or a debt remains.

8. Field work

What the driver does in front of the machine, and what it produces on the management side.

• A badge opens a session: restocking, removal and stocktaking follow without badging again.
• Entry is never blocking: without it, everything derives from detection.
• Batches and expiry tracked per location, consumed closest-to-expiry first.
• Append-only stock movements, each with its reason.
• Photographs at opening and at closing.
• Ranked detection hypotheses, with an arbitration screen.
• Valued losses, explained removals.
• Replenishment orders generated from stock and expiry alerts.

9. Reports and accounting

The figures you invoice to your customers, and those you declare.

• Exact to the cent: sales, VAT, receipts, subsidies per organisation.
• Read "as at" a chosen day, exact by construction.
• Days in the site's time zone, currencies never added together.
• Revenue is what was settled: partials, failures and debts are tracked separately.
• A settled or cancelled sale is no longer modified.
• Accounting chain: frozen VAT report, gapless numbering, signed audit export.
• Ten-year retention.
• Outbound notifications to your system, signed and retried on failure.

10. Recipe machines

Drinks bar and coffee machine: the machine makes the product, so you bill what actually flowed.

• A recipe is a product; strength and size are settings.
• The price comes from a grid crossing category and size.
• Consumables with two thresholds: alert, then unavailable.
• Availability is decided on the machine: a drink greys out as soon as its flavouring runs out.
• The pour is measured: volume served, stopping at the target or on command.
• Billed pro rata to the volume actually served.
• Episode alerts: leak, no flow, gas or pouch empty.
• Usage and sustainability: volumes, bottles avoided, carbon equivalent.
• Scheduled maintenance, with its append-only record and its due date.

11. The machine

One selling program for every type, and hardware described rather than coded.

• Behaviour comes from configuration: no code per machine type.
• A shared kit brings the bus, local authorisation and reporting to the cloud.
• Typed things: lock, door, reader, shelf, probe, terminal, coin mechanism.
• Commands triggered by step: lighting on authorisation, photograph on opening.
• The screen is a stateless view: it displays and returns intentions.
• Without business configuration, the machine refuses to sell — it does not guess.
• One simulator per family, publishing the same list as real hardware.
• An interrupted session becomes a fact in error, never lost data.

12. Integration with the information system

What connects the platform to your own tools.

• Service key and user token, with a role per scope.
• Mandatory idempotency key on every call that moves money.
• Each module publishes its addresses and declares what it needs.
• A missing link cleanly disables the function, and logs it.
• Sortable, paginated, filterable lists; amounts in cents with their currency.
• Incoming and outgoing notifications, and interface keys for your partners.