Sky Co-op uses AI to flag purchasing price changes

Sky Co-op president Tom Hannon has built 20 AI assistants using CollectivIQ to watch purchasing and other business activity, according to an October 2 report by Fast Casual. One, called Morgan, flags weekly price changes above 5% for review.

Hannon checks the findings against ArrowStream and InsideTrack, the co-op’s existing data systems. Contract status and the number of cases purchased help him evaluate a change. Purchasing decisions remain with people, he told the publication.

The purchasing cooperative serves Skyline Chili and other restaurant concepts. Hannon described an earlier pricing error: a food item’s contract price rose roughly $20 from one month to the next, and an operator noticed it about three weeks later.

Start with the purchasing record#

The underlying records require preparation. InsideTrack’s description of its data processing identifies inconsistent product descriptions, missing fields, mismatched item identifiers and unclear sizes among the problems in foodservice invoices. The company says it organizes that information into a consistent system and presents purchasing insights through dashboard tiles. That work gives a buying team a common view of purchases recorded differently by separate distributors.

In its price-verification workflow, InsideTrack says it receives data electronically from distributors, cleans the records and maps them to a manufacturer’s product. Negotiated agreements supply an expected selling price for each item. The system compares invoice charges with those prices and flags discrepancies. It also checks rebates, allowances and promotional prices against negotiated terms.

These vendor descriptions explain available purchasing tools, rather than documenting Sky Co-op’s exact configuration.

ArrowStream’s pricing workflow addresses another part of the same work: keeping the agreed terms current. The company describes shared pricing communications among operators, distributors and suppliers, with contracts, supporting documents and edits accessible in one place. Participants can review and approve price updates. Its contract-management services maintain those records and update pricing terms, while audit services check contracted spending and track credit recovery.

The contract record supplies a reference for deciding whether a new price is correct. A buyer can check for an approved change in terms as well as a bill that diverges from the agreement. The pricing history and the invoice serve different purposes in that review.

ArrowStream also offers audit management and recovery services for teams that need outside support. Its rebate tools show historical product rebates and help identify new ones.

Give the monitor a defined job#

CollectivIQ identifies Buyers Edge Platform as its partner and lists ArrowStream and InsideTrack among its connected systems. Its listed roles include analysts, invoice analysts and bookkeepers.

The company illustrates an analyst turning a set of weekly prices into a purchasing brief, with a table and the total cost increase. An invoice analyst compares invoices with purchase orders. Before a business conversation, the company describes a brief drawn from its shared knowledge base, combining contacts, terms, relationship history and open issues with a source for each fact. Information outside the user’s access is omitted.

CollectivIQ’s specialist documentation says a user describes the job, then the platform assigns a role and the tools it needs. Scheduled work can include morning briefings and weekly digests; completed results appear in an activity panel. It also says facts and context carry between tasks with source references. The schedule provides a recurring output a person can return to, rather than requiring a fresh request for each report.

Access follows the person connecting the account. In its controls documentation, CollectivIQ says connections use that person’s business-system permissions, and the requested access can be inspected and revoked. Company knowledge retains access restrictions based on the user’s role. The company also describes separate personal and business workspaces, limiting which records a query can retrieve.

The controls extend to reviewing what happened. CollectivIQ says its activity history shows completed work in plain language alongside the tool calls that produced it. Actions and connection calls are recorded in an audit log. Users can pause proactive work and set trust rules for particular action types. They may approve or reject individual requests, or grant standing approval for a recipient. A separate sent log records outbound messages and who approved them.

Follow the discrepancy through recovery#

InsideTrack’s service continues beyond its initial flag. The company says its analysts conduct monthly audits, share reports for joint review and work with distributors on overpayments. Its published process allows up to 30 business days for distributor review, followed by 1–30 business days for InsideTrack’s response and credit issuance. Customers receive updates on collection status and payments received, with recovered amounts reported by vendor.