Smart Safes: Should They Be Counting Your Money?

By Jim Stone, director of marketing, Tellermate Group

Not long ago I was at a conference and the VP of Loss Prevention for a large QSR chain took me by the arm and said “We were going to get rid of your equipment (we build and sell Tellermate electronic cash counters) and replace you with smart safes. Then we realized we were wrong.” While that was music to my ears, it also highlighted the dilemma many retailers, C-Stores and QRS’s are having: How does a smart safe fit into my cash handling strategy?

Smart safe defined
First, we should all be using the same terminology. A smart safe is a safe that accepts, counts and in most cases validates bills, almost like a reverse ATM. The bills are stored in a cartridge that can hold, depending on the model, from a few hundred to over four thousand bills. Once the bills are in the safe they stay there until picked-up by your cash-in-transit (CIT) provider.