As a small business owner, you know that administrative tasks take up a lot of time. After a long day of working at the store, the last thing you want to do is sit around the back office and count the day’s cash. Or, you are paying your employees for extra hours to stay late each night to do this chore. Either way, when managed improperly, operational tasks such as money sorting can slow down your small business’s productivity, cost you money, and decrease efficiency. You may think that you can’t afford to change your money sorting system now, or buy new automated machines to help you, but the money you will save will more than make up for the investment.
Here are some money sorting do’s and don’ts to help you increase your operational efficiency and save you money.
Do Put Cash Sorting Procedures in Place
Hopefully, your store is bustling, customers are buying products, and your cash registers are getting filled. That’s great for business, but if things are going quickly at the register—customers are handing over tons of bills and change—and your employees can’t keep up, you will have a tougher time sorting your money at the end of the shift. The cash register should be the front line for proper cash handling methods. Discuss proper cash counting and sorting procedures with your staff to ensure you are streamlining your cash handling process right from the beginning.
Don’t Rely on Manual Counting and Sorting
Counting and sorting each bill and coin by hand can be time consuming and tedious. Additionally, it can easily lead to errors—a bill can be missed, a quarter can be counted as a dime, or a number can be transposed, leading to discrepancies in your nightly counts. If your count doesn’t match the register’s numbers, you will have to recount every penny again, leading to wasted time that can be spent on more important business tasks.
Letting your employees manually sort your cash can also lead to shrinkage. It’s a touchy subject, but the truth is that internal theft occurs, and it can cost you hard-earned money. To reduce the chances of an employee helping himself to some of your cash, automate your systems and let the machines handle your money instead.
Do Invest in Currency Sorting Machines
There are many cash solutions on the market that can help you save time and money when sorting your small business’s cash. Currency sorters have a 99.995% accuracy rate so you know your counts will always be correct at the end of the night. Coin sorters can process 10,000 coins per hour—think about all the time you will save.
Here’s how it works: Coin sorters organize batches of mixed coins into bins, while also counting the separate denominations. The sorting machine then gives you an accurate total, all while rejecting bent and defective coins. Special attachments can even roll or bag your coins, depending on your small business needs.
Do Store Your Cash Securely
Once your bills and coins have been sorted, ensure that you are keeping them organized in secure storage in order to reduce cash misplacement or theft. If each penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar is wrapped up by denomination, and then recorded, you will guarantee that all your money is where it is supposed to be. Those dimes add up, so don’t lose them with sloppy storage practices.
When you have a proper cash management system in place, it’s inevitable that you will see your profits increase, your operational and labour costs decrease, and your productivity soar.
