If you own a business that accepts cash payments, you are exposed to a multitude of risks that require informed and serious attention.
In today’s world, cash has to be managed and not just handled. Contracting an end to end retail cash management solution (CMS) has proven to be the most cost effective answer to managing cash and delivers an immediate return on investment by reducing costs in key operating areas of shrinkage, interest from delays in receiving value at the bank, insurance, supervision and deposit fees.
Importantly, a cash management solution should also create an effective deterrent against violent armed robbery as well as overnight, break and entry burglaries.
It will reduce the amount of times your staff have contact with your money and introduce indisputable accountability. Cash shortages will be reduced if not entirely eliminated.
Businesses appear to accept and even deny that cash shrinkage or shortage is a feature of their business. The fact is that dishonest staff will and do steal if the opportunity presents and international trends suggest that as much as 0.15% of cash turnover disappears between the till and the bank. In Rand terms that’s R1.50 per R1000. In a manual cash handling environment you have no way of knowing or controlling theft and when it happens there’s nothing you can do about it.
A cash management solution will address all of these issues, streamline your operations and create a professional and customer friendly trading environment which will improve turnover and margin. Notwithstanding, business needs to be aware of solutions that don’t deliver the right components necessary to meet the deliverables they promise.
When considering the right solution for your business ensure that you are contracting for a truly robust cash deposit device that is capable of standing up to sophisticated attack. Understand that criminals are more often than not, organised syndicates, well informed and in possession of the equipment and materials necessary for them to achieve their goals.
Ensure that your CMS service provider has a dependable track record, is reputable, financially sound and capable of taking on the responsibility for your cash. Cheaper is almost always never better.
The less often your cash is counted, the better. An automated cash management solution establishes a relationship directly between the Point Of Sale cashier and the cash vault. Throughout the day, the cash is frequently removed from the POS and deposited into the cash vault thereby keeping the exposed value to its minimum. The cash vault records the details of the cashier and date and time of deposit. It counts and validates the deposits and prints a receipt for the cashier. From the moment the cash is deposited, the risk is transferred to the CMS service provider and the value is guaranteed. There is no longer a need for a supervisor to check and sign for cash from the cashiers. No more opportunity for error.
Your cash has been counted, validated, secured and ready for collection and automatically reported so that you know exactly that all of your money is where it should be. When the cash accumulates at the front end, points of sale and has to be manually counted and received in the back office at the end of the day, the opportunity for armed robbery is huge and there is no accountability. If the staff collude to steal, you will be unable to attribute blame convincingly.
Your cash management solution secures the cash and removes the attraction for hit and run robbery. With biometric identification, cashier accountability becomes indisputable and what the cash vault counts is what it receives!
The right automated cash management solution is the informed approach to securing your business, reducing your costs and growing your sales.