Convenience store owners are particularly susceptible to cash management challenges. Cash is the most popular method of payment for small transactions under $50 and for entertainment, transportation, and food expenses, meaning that convenience stores have a higher proportion of cash transactions compared to other establishments simply due to what they sell. This higher proportion of cash transactions results in high labour costs for manual cash handling, increased chances of transactional errors, and lowered productivity and efficiency, among other challenges.
In addition, convenience store owners must be vigilant when it comes to robbery, counterfeit, and internal theft—all serious and common cash management risks in the industry.
Improving cash management should be a priority for convenience store owners as a way to reduce costs, reduce risks, increase security, and enhance service.
Here are some ways convenience store owners can improve cash handling.
Improve Cash Management with Smart Safes
Smart safes are sophisticated safes that play an active role in the cash management process. They use smart technology to count, sort, verify, and track incoming cash.
Smart safes are particularly useful for convenience stores. They not only safeguard money in a more secure manner than traditional floor safes, but they also eliminate shrinkage and increase security. When smart safes are integrated with the point-of-sale system, all cashier activities will be tracked, which will make employee theft virtually impossible without being caught.
Additionally, smart safes minimize the risk of robbery and lower insurance premiums by ensuring that check-out cashiers have no access to the cash in the store—only the armoured car provider has access. The money goes directly into the safe and cannot be removed by anyone else.
Counterfeit Detectors to Reduce Risk of Fraud
Because convenience stores handle a lot of cash on a daily basis, counterfeiters often target these stores for fraud. These stores may also come in possession of counterfeit bills through innocent customers who picked them up elsewhere without knowing. But either way, the moment you accept a counterfeit bill at your convenience store is the moment that you take on the loss.
Counterfeit detection is important in convenience stores. It can ensure that you get paid with authentic money for the products you sell. Using state-of-the-art, up-to-date counterfeit detectors that are equipped with multiple detection technologies can ensure that your cashiers do not accept fraudulent notes throughout their shifts, which can reduce your losses. Counterfeit detectors are far more effective than even the most detailed oriented and diligent cashier who is checking bank notes manually.
Cash Recyclers to Improve Customer Service and Cash Flow
Cash recyclers are gaining ground in the convenience store industry. They’re complex machines that can drastically cut down on transaction times and increase productivity by automatically accepting, counting, sorting, verifying, balancing, and dispensing cash. With cash recyclers, convenience store owners can have fewer employees on shift and maintain the same customer service level. They can increase accuracy through automation and reduce the risk of cash handling mistakes that result in costly losses as well as customer dissatisfaction. And they can also be used as another method to improve cash flow, by recycling the same cash from one day to the next—requires less cash on site to perform daily transactions. Finally, cash recyclers also act as highly secure vaults that can keep cash safe and away from prying eyes.
These three improvements to cash management have one thing in common: automation. In today’s digital age, there’s no reason to be manually handling cash at the convenience store anymore. There’s no need to be wasting time, getting your hands dirty, increasing your risk of theft and errors, and driving your labour costs to count, sort, balance, and verify cash by hand. Through automation, you can improve your cash handling process from end to end, which will enhance your profitability.
