5 Examples of Bad Cash Handling Practices (Updated 2020)

    Feb 17 2020

    Topics: Canada, Cash Handling Solutions, Retailers

    Proper cash management is important to your business. Poor cash handling practices increase your costs and your risks, lower efficiency and productivity, and inevitably you end up losing out through wasted time, losses, and high expenses.

    Unfortunately, it happens all too often. You’re focused on other priorities. You may not think much about how your employees are handling your cash. It only crosses your mind when cash goes missing or a till won’t balance.

    Download "9 Cash Handling Best Practices for Retailers" to improve cash  management in your retail business today!

    Once you’ve realized that bad cash handling practices are harming your business, you can take a proactive approach to improving your processes.

    If you’re using any of these bad cash handling practices, it’s time to overhaul your cash management process for the better.

    1. Consider the Technology You Use at Registers

    It’s common knowledge that letting different cashiers use the same till can lead to issues. If you assign a till to one cashier and have it follow them through their shift, it becomes much easier to hold them accountable for the funds in the till.

    Unfortunately for most businesses, this one till to one cashier set-up is unrealistic. Your cashiers switch tills, relieve each other for breaks, and so on. How can you improve accountability?

    A coin and banknote recycler could be the answer. The machine keeps a running tally of how much cash is in the vault, then makes those funds available for reuse immediately. It also offers additional security features, which can help you hold your team members more accountable.

    2. Focusing Only on Shortages

    It’s natural to care more about cash shortages than overages. After all, these are losses that you’ll have to incur. You should be paying more attention to those overages. Any deviation from the expected cash amount should matter to you and to your employees. Accuracy should be a priority.

    Not paying attention to overages means you’re not worried about short-changing your customers.

    If you focus too much on shortages, this might make your employees feel like they must put in their own personal cash to cover accidental shortages in order to stay out of trouble. In turn, they may also feel justified in “skimming” from any overages.

    Finally, overages often occur because employees didn’t ring items through your company’s register system, which means your inventory counts will be off. This can hurt you later, when you don’t reorder on time or don’t have enough product on the shelves.

    3. Poor Training

    You must set your employees up for success. It takes practice to become a good cash handler. It’s your responsibility to train employees properly on cash management practices. No matter how busy you are or how much training increases labour costs, it should still be top priority. In the long run, this will reduce employee stress, protect your cash, and also reduce turnover.

    4. Unsupervised Cash Counting

    You might completely trust all of your employees, but that doesn’t mean that you should be lax about cash counting supervision. By allowing an employee to count and sort their own registers at the start or end of their shifts, without supervision, you’re giving them opportunities to be dishonest. There are many ways they may justify their behavior, and many of the techniques they employ can be difficult to detect. Always have two people present during a cash count if you’re doing so manually.

    5. Manual Cash Handling

    You might think that double counting everything is a good cash handling practice. It will increase the accuracy of manual counts, but it’s actually inefficient considering the technology available today. If you’re still manually counting, sorting, and processing cash, you’re losing out. There are many cash management solutions that you can integrate to increase efficiency and productivity as well as accuracy and speed.

    If you’re ready to improve your cash handling practices, it might be time to upgrade your technology. Get in touch and find a better solution for your business.

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    Andrea Lombardi

    Andrea Lombardi

    Andrea joined the CashTech team upon its inception in 2003. Learning the business from the ground up, she now utilizes her expertise in account management, planning, and negotiation while managing the daily operations of CashTech’s sales, marketing, and logistics departments. Andrea holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario. She enjoys travelling and has a passion for personal fitness, including obtaining her kettlebell certification. Andrea lives in Toronto with her husband and two young sons.

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