Depending on their size, industry, and success, as well as the types of products they sell, retailers tend to have varying levels of cash transactions. A high-end jewelry store, for example, would likely see fewer payments made in cash and more credit card transactions. On the other hand, a gas station or variety store that sells lower-priced items would likely see more cash transactions than debit or credit.
Retailers with high-frequency cash transactions often face unique challenges, such as the ones described below. Fortunately, there is a solution that will help solve these challenges.
1. Too Much Cash on Hand
When your lines are long with waiting customers, it’s easy for your cash drawers to fill up quickly without having the time required to deposit the cash in the back room. Unfortunately, having too much cash on hand may cause many problems, including disorganization, lost or missing money, and a higher risk of theft.
It’s a good idea to have policies in place to determine how much cash in the drawer is “too much” and protocols for transporting and depositing the extra cash at regular intervals in a secure manner.
2. More Contact with Cash, More Mistakes
Ideally, retailers should strive to reduce overall contact with cash in their stores. For retailers with high-frequency cash transactions, this will be difficult. After all, the more cash you bring in, the more your employees will need to handle cash, not only for transactions but for float distribution, cash drops, reconciliations, and deposits.
The more contact your employees have with your cash, the higher your risks of human error. They will be more likely to make mistakes, which will lead to losses. By automating your cash management process as much as possible, you will reduce this risk of errors.
3. High Labor Costs
The more cash you bring in on a daily basis, the more time it will take your employees and managers to count, sort, and reconcile it at the end of their shift or at the end of the night. With all the extra time spent on manual cash handling, you could see your labor costs increase unnecessarily.
Automating these cash handling tasks will help speed up the process and reduce the amount of time your employees need to spend hanging around after their shifts for cash counting and reconciliation. For smaller operations, consider currency counters and sorters. Larger operations with significant high-volume cash transactions should consider currency recyclers and smart safes instead. These back-room cash management systems will reduce the time and costs associated with manual cash handling.
4. Higher Risk of Counterfeit
The more cash you bring in, the more likely you may face counterfeit fraud at some point in business. Today’s counterfeit bills are becoming even more sophisticated and difficult to spot with the naked eye. Further, if your employees are dealing with long lines and trying to speed through cash transactions to keep the lines moving, they will be more likely to skip counterfeit detection. Inevitably, this leads to higher risks for your store. Having counterfeit detectors at each register will help improve the counterfeit detection process.
Retailers with high-frequency cash transactions face unique challenges. Cash automation will help solve them.
