Cash Management Solutions Benefit Everyone

We often see retailers grapple with the decision to purchase cash handling technology. Is their exposure to risk great enough to warrant the investment? At what level of loss does it break even? Are there other options such as employee training or updated hiring practices that can reduce shrink and theft?    

All of these are good questions, but they don't address a much bigger question — how much can cash management technology help the business? Today's cash handling equipment is not just about security; it's also about productivity and process efficiencies. It's about cash flow. It's about information and control.

For instance, today's technology is so advanced, it can literally remove cash handling from your cash operations except for the few seconds between accepting it from customers and inserting into an external access safe where it is counted, verified for authenticity, and entered into memory. This transforms the cash cycle from a manual process to an automated flow, virtually eliminating the onerous tasks of counting, recounting, and verifying cash on-site, allowing you to regain resources — human resources — previously dedicated to cash handling procedures. For some stores, this can amount to hours a day, dozens a week, and hundreds a year. Multiplied over a number of locations, the increase in productivity (and reduction in salary expense, depending on circumstances) can be staggering.

What's more, cash management technology streamlines the entire cash flow cycle, accelerating funds availability so you gain access to your cash faster — a benefit your treasury and accounting teams will appreciate. Comprehensive detail often is available online in real time for cash management and the control of cash flow at the store level or across multiple locations. Accounting employees also will appreciate the improvements in reconciliation speed and accuracy and the opportunity to consolidate accounts to save the time and expense associated with managing multiple banking relationships.

Cash Management Benefits Spread Beyond Security
Other departments, such as your in-house training and HR groups, can benefit as well. In addition to creating a safer, more secure workplace that helps prevent criminal activity — resulting in fewer workers' compensation claims and associated losses — an automated solution may save a company hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours in training employees on cash handling procedures, monitoring their compliance with those processes, and dealing with disciplinary action. 

These benefits extend to store operations too, often giving managers a higher level of confidence in their employees and reducing the amount of supervisory oversight necessary. As a result, managers have more time to concentrate on their top priority — running the business.

Your customers benefit from cash management technology. Locations that use cash access safes are inherently safer because cash theft is generally a crime of opportunity; cash handling technology eliminates this opportunity, frustrates would-be criminals, and forces them to go elsewhere. What's left is a safer work environment that leaves employees free to focus on serving customers — not on protecting cash. 

I've been in the secure logistics business for many years, and I believe today's cash handling technology gives retailers the opportunity they've been waiting for — a solution that is designed to protect the company against risk while bringing tangible, bottom-line benefits to departments throughout a retail operation. And, when a solution benefits everyone, the investment decision becomes an easy one.