As a business owner, you know you need to accept cash in order to give your customers the wide variety of payment options they desire. But you also know that by simply accepting cash, you subject yourself to many risks. Cash handling and management is risky business, but those risks increase when you process currency manually, without an automated cash management solution in place, and that can hurt your bottom line.
Just consider the five risks described below.
1. Internal Cash Shrinkage
Did you know that employee theft was responsible for 39% of shrinkage, surpassing shoplifting, according to the most recent Global Retail Theft Barometer? This results in over $123.4 billion in losses globally. The average amount stolen by employees is five times greater than the average amount stolen by shoplifters. Naturally, this makes internal cash shrinkage a huge risk, one that increases when you have no accountability, when you don’t track your cash, and when your employees handle your money unattended, whether at the front or in the cash room.
Automated cash management can help you keep your employees’ hands off your money and can greatly increase accountability. Every dollar will be tracked and reported, which can deter internal theft.
2. High Labour Costs
Without automated cash management, your employees are spending hours upon hours every day handling cash—counting it, sorting it, transporting it, processing it, etc. You might be surprised to hear that the average retailer, with 3 to 5 registers, spends 15 hours per day manually managing cash, and that number can double for national retailers. The average bank note is touched at least five times before it’s deposited—when everyone is handling cash, multiple times a day, your labour costs rise. And this can greatly hurt your bottom line—you’re risking your profitability when you’re spending so much on labour for cash handling activities.
When you let the machines do the work, you can cut your labour costs and get a higher ROI.
3. Struggling Cash Flow
Cash flow is the lifeblood of your business and if you don’t have enough cash to pay for your workforce, to pay your bills, and to pay your vendors, you could go under. Cash flow is reduced when manually handling cash. But automated cash management solutions can reduce your vault holdings by at least 10%, giving you more money to spend elsewhere.
4. Counterfeit Fraud
You may have taught your employees how to detect counterfeit by sight and touch, but this method alone isn’t truly effective. Sophisticated counterfeits can slip through, which then become your losses. When you invest in automated cash management solutions that are equipped with counterfeit detection technology, you can take a stand against counterfeit money.
5. Human Error
You might think that human error is inevitable—that you just have to accept that your employees will make mistakes when processing customer transactions, counting and sorting your cash, or reconciling your profits, but this isn’t true. You can virtually eliminate human error by using automated cash management solutions that boast a 99.995% accuracy rate. The fewer losses you take on due to human error, the more money you’ll have in your pocket.
These five risks can significantly affect your business and your bottom line. It’s time to manage these risks for the good of your profitability. Investing in cash management solutions can help you reduce internal shrinkage, reduce your labour costs, improve your cash flow, eliminate counterfeit fraud, and eradicate human error. Your company, your bottom line, your employees, and even your customers will benefit when your cash handling process is as efficient, accurate, and productive as it can be.
