StationPro + McLane
Major c-store distributor, line-item invoice import and cost history.
What McLane is.
McLane is one of the three largest convenience-store distributors in the US (alongside Core-Mark and Eby-Brown), supplying tobacco, candy, snacks, beverages, and general merchandise to roughly 50,000 c-store locations. Independents typically receive 2-4 McLane deliveries per week, each with an invoice covering 40-100+ line items at the SKU level.
What data flows between McLane and StationPro.
StationPro ingests the McLane PDF invoice (drop or photo) and extracts every line: SKU, description, case quantity, units per case, unit cost, line total. We compare each line's unit cost against the previous McLane invoice for that SKU. Cost increases above the configured threshold (default 5%) flag in the review queue. Approved invoices post to QuickBooks as a vendor bill with the line items mapped to inventory.
What McLanealone doesn't give you.
McLane invoices have the highest line-item density of any distributor (60-100 lines is common). Hand-typing them takes the bookkeeper 20-40 minutes per invoice. Cost increases get missed because nobody compares this week's Marlboro Box price against last week's. Inventory posting falls behind, and shrink calculations become unreliable.
How StationPro closes the gap.
A McLane invoice goes from delivery to posted-in-QB in 90 seconds, clerk takes a photo, OCR extracts the lines, bookkeeper reviews the price-change flags, one click to approve. Cost increases on tobacco SKUs (where margin is tightest) get caught the day they happen. SKU-level inventory stays accurate enough that shrink detection works on the McLane categories.
Current status
The vendor is in scope and the integration approach is known. We turn it on for paying customers within 2 weeks of the request.
How McLane onboarding works.
Scoping call
A 30-minute walk-through of your current setup with McLane. We confirm credentials, data shape, and the workflows you need feeding into StationPro.
Connection
We wire the McLane feed into your StationPro tenant. Depending on the inventory & distribution, this is a credential paste, a webhook config, or a same-day support ticket with the vendor.
Backfill
Historical McLane data from the last 90 days is ingested so EOD, Loss Radar, and audit views have context from day one, not just data going forward.
Go-live
Clerks and managers trained on the integrated flows. We monitor the first 7 days closely and fix anything that doesn't feel right.
Questions about McLane.
Does it handle multi-page McLane invoices?
Yes. McLane invoices for large stores run 4-8 pages. The OCR layer handles multi-page PDFs natively; line items are extracted sequentially with header continuity. We have 1000+ McLane invoices in the training set, so the accuracy is consistently above 98%.
What about McLane credit memos and returns?
Credit memos process the same way, recognized by their header format and posted as a negative bill in QB. Returns and shorts on the original invoice (a line shipped at quantity 0 with a refund line below) are also captured. The vendor reconciliation reflects net activity.
How does this interact with the McLane online portal?
StationPro's integration is at the invoice layer (PDF in, posted in QB out), not the portal. Operators who use the McLane portal for ordering keep doing so; StationPro just replaces the data-entry side of the workflow.
More inventory & distribution integrations
Want to see the McLane integration in action?
On the demo call, we'll show you the connected dashboard with seeded data and walk through the onboarding steps.