The retail industry is fraught with cash management issues. Due to the fact that cash is the prevailing method of choice for small purchases, retailers must handle large volumes of coins and bank notes. As a result, their labour costs increase, their risks of employee theft, counterfeit fraud and robbery increase, and their productivity, customer service levels, and efficiency levels often suffer as well.
Retailers seeking to reduce these costs, risks, and consequences of a poor cash management process look to trends in retail cash automation, like the ones described below.
1. Cash Recycling
Though cash recycling started out as a retail cash automation solution only used by national stores, this trend is now growing and many smaller retailers are also getting on board and realizing its benefits.
Implementing a cash recycler is an investment, but one that offers many advantages. This complex machine automates much of the cash management process. It can create and dispense floats and reconcile and balance profits at the end of the day. It can automatically count, sort, and verify incoming cash and can be used to help during customer transactions as well. It can speed up transactions and speed up customer lines while eliminating the need for vault transactions.
Cash recycling significantly reduces the time spent on tedious and time-consuming cash handling activities, while also improving accuracy, efficiency, and customer service.
2. Smart Safes
Smart safes—unlike traditional floor safes—take an active part in the cash management process. They use smart technology to perform several key cash handling tasks, including counting and sorting cash, validating the legitimacy of bank notes, tracking and recording all cash transactions, generating user statistics and cash flow visualizations and more. The smart safe can enhance efficiency and productivity.
They also keep your money as safe as possible in your store, with their anti-lock drilling features and advanced locking systems. They can even be remotely monitored and hooked up to your retail store’s alarm system.
The smart safe is relatively new, but a huge leap forward in cash management technology—and many retailers are jumping on board.
3. Complete Counterfeit Detection Plan
In the past, many retailers failed to successfully detect counterfeit notes on a consistent basis. As a result, they faced many avoidable losses as retailers are often targeted by counterfeiters. Largely, this is because they lacked a complete counterfeit detection plan. Some retailers trained their employees on counterfeit detection, and did little else. Others invest in a small countertop UV counterfeit detector, which isn’t fool proof.
Now, retailers are realizing the necessity of prioritizing counterfeit detection and are investing in a full counterfeit detection plan. Not only do they train all of their workers, new and old, to detect counterfeit notes through manual tactics, but they invest in state-of-the-art automatic counterfeit detectors that will never let them down. Every time new bills are minted and their technology becomes outdated, or when they start to accept currency from different countries, they update their counterfeit protection plan. This type of vigilance is now required in the retail industry, where counterfeit fraud is common and its prevalence increasing.
By staying up to date with trends in retail cash automation, retailers can stay one step ahead of their competitors, of thieving employees, of robbers, and of counterfeiters. They can continuously improve their productivity, efficiency, and efficacy. They can keep reducing these costs of cash and reducing their risks. These three new trends in retail cash automation can help retailers achieve all of the above. With continuous advances in cash management technology, there’s simply no reason to continue to process cash manually.
