Retailers operate with razor-thin margins, so they’re often looking for ways to rationalize their processes. As a retailer, you may adopt new technology or revise the way you schedule your staff. You might look at how you maintain inventory levels.
Another important aspect to consider is how to handle cash in retail. Most retailers handle cash on a daily basis, but not all of them handle it well.
There’s good news. There’s an easy five-step process to improve your cash handling right now.
1. Adopting New Technology Creates New Choices for How to Handle Cash in Retail
First, evaluate the technology you’re using in your retail cash handling environment. Putting the right technology in place can help you streamline operations and improve productivity and cash efficiency.
A cash counter could help you switch from manual cash counting to an automated process. This changes how your employees carry out their cash-handling duties.
Other technology, such as smart safes and cash recyclers, can also change the way you handle cash.
2. Create Sound Cash Handling Policies and Procedures
Once you have your chosen technologies in place, it’s time to create policies and procedures. At this stage of the process, you’ll be concerned with the ins and outs of how cash is handled in your business.
You’ll want to describe best practices, such as when and where to count cash. Another consideration might be when to collect cash from tills or how often to deposit cash in the safe or bank. What float will you require in your tills before cashiers start their shifts?
In the cash office, think about procedures such as record-keeping and reconciling the books. How will you ensure accuracy when it comes to counting? A cash counting machine and a smart safe can help, but you may want an additional procedure for verification in order to minimize errors.
Security procedures are also important. Think about who can access your safe and under what circumstances. Which tasks can they perform?
3. Train Your Team
The next step in how to handle cash in retail is to make sure you’re training your team on your new procedures. You’ll want to teach them not only policies, such as when to pick up cash from a till or how to prepare a float, but how to use cash technology as well.
The right training is integral to good cash handling in a retail business. Keep your team up to date with the latest procedures. Arrange training and revise policies whenever you introduce new technology.
4. Prepare Floats and Count Tills
Now it’s time to look at the day-to-day activities of your routine. You should have the right measures in place for preparing tills at the beginning of the day. You also want the right procedures for counting up and closing out tills at the end of each cashier’s shift.
Tasks like these are made simpler with the right technology. A coin and bank note recycler can make it quick and easy to prepare floats to specifications. The recycler can also tally up tills in short order, meaning cashiers need less time to count tills at the end of the shift.
5. Prepare Bank Deposits and Keep Records
Once your cashiers have finished their shifts, the action will shift to the back office. Your cash managers will use your technology to count up cash and verify how much cash is on hand.
They’ll also use these devices to prepare bank deposits and store cash securely until it’s time for a bank run or armoured car pickup. They’ll keep records, reconcile the books, and more.
As you can see, having the right technology on hand makes answering questions about how to handle cash in retail easy.
