Despite the increase in electronic payments and online shopping, cash is here to stay. For business owners and managers, cash-handling security procedures remain essential to preventing theft and ensuring efficient operations.
Money handling can be an exacting task for cash-heavy businesses such as restaurants and retail establishments. However, with the strategic use of technology and the right cash-handling procedures in place, you not only protect assets but also optimize business operations and revenue.
Discover how automated cash management systems like CashSimple® provide increased efficiency and accuracy for cash handling.
Common Risks of Cash Handling
Businesses face many vulnerabilities when managing cash transactions, such as theft, fraud, human error, and physical dangers to employees. If not managed properly, these risks can significantly impact business profitability and reputation.
- Theft: Cash does not come with the built-in security of debit and credit card payments making it susceptible to internal and external theft.
- Human Error: No one is perfect, so there is always the risk of some human error when handling cash whether it’s employees or managers.
- Inefficiency: Employees spending too much time on cash handling processes can cost you more in labor. Plus, the more hands the money crosses, the more chances of loss or theft, and human error.
- Safety Risks: External theft could potentially put employees in physical danger either in the establishment or while transporting money to the bank.
- Reconciliation Issues: Cash doesn’t automatically have a paper trail, so it can be hard to trace missing money when balancing the cash register at the end of the day.
Schedule a demo with Integrated Cash Logistics and learn how to shorten your distance to cash.
8 Cash Handling Security Procedures
The best way to mitigate risks is to prevent them from occurring in the first place with transparent, strict cash handling security procedures. Employees should be trained at the register on proper cash handling best practices. Managers are responsible for knowing proper cash handling techniques as well as how to use cash safe portals and software to ensure accurate safe counts at all times.
Effective business cash management is vital to identifying and stopping any revenue loss and maximizing growth. While some cash-handling best practices may vary between restaurants versus retail establishments, the strategies listed below apply to all types of businesses.
Automate Cash Handling with Smart Safes
Smart safes can automate counting the cash and securing it, reducing human error and the amount of time spent on cash management duties. Some smart safes can even identify counterfeit bills. Once you deposit cash into a smart safe, it secures and sends it to your bank account as a provisional credit.
This process makes smart safes much more secure from theft than traditional safes. Services like CashSimple® from Integrated Cash Logistics combine the best features of smart safes and cash recyclers for the most optimized cash handling procedures.
Use Tamper-Evident Cash Bags
Tamper-evident cash bags have special features that make them difficult to replicate, manipulate, or open. This can deter theft during the transportation of cash between locations or to the bank.
There are reusable and disposable tamper-evident bags. The bags have space to write a deposit slip of how much cash is inside, so they are ideal for businesses that have multiple cash registers. Managers can count and seal money in a cash bag throughout their shift and deliver it to the safe to minimize the amount of cash left unsecured or unaccounted for.
Regularly Audit and Reconcile Reports
Frequent audits and reconciliations of financial reports help identify discrepancies early, which gives you a better chance of remedying them. Regular reviews contribute to maintaining accurate financial records and deterring internal theft. Set up a standardized cash management policy with an auditing schedule and stick to it.
Designate which managers will be in charge of reconciliation and record keeping. These should be separate from the managers in charge of other cash management duties such as counting money and introducing new cash to registers. These internal controls for cash handling help ensure accurate cash records, allowing managers and owners to investigate discrepancies if they arise.
Experience streamlined operations and enhanced security from optimized cash management with Integrated Cash Logistics.
Properly Train Staff in Cash Handling Security Procedures
Training is key to smooth business operations. While business owners and managers are often eager to have new employees start in their assigned roles right away, it’s essential not to skip or rush the training process. This will help you avoid major issues down the line. Training should explain the segregation of duties with all cash handling security procedures and policies. This includes how often employees should count their registers or cash drawers and the limits of how much cash can be in the safe and registers at any given moment.
You should train all new employees, regardless of their previous cash-handling experience, so they can learn your business’s standardized practices. Also, consider conducting ongoing training with current employees to provide refreshers and address any new threats or changes in cash operations.
Restrict Access to Cash Handling Areas
When creating your cash management policies and training staff on them, be clear about each person’s role in the cash handling procedures. Consider designating the following roles:
- Two authorized employees are to be responsible for counting money
- Two authorized employees are to be responsible for transporting cash
- Two authorized employees must be present when withdrawing cash from the safe.
- Two authorized employees are to be present when cash is introduced to a cash register
Ideally, all these designated employees are different people. Cash counting and transferring should occur in a secure room away from other employees and customers. Other employees should be limited from accessing cash-handling areas. These tactics will reduce the risk of internal and external theft.
Optimize Cash Collection and Transportation
Armored car services are the most common method for securely moving cash from a business to a bank and vice versa. Armored cars are much safer than just transporting cash in a regular vehicle even with a lock box inside. Using an outside service also reduces the amount of time that the managers or employees are off-site.
However, armored cars are not without issues such as scheduling problems or delays in service. That’s why some businesses choose to streamline their cash-in-transit services with their other cash management services.
Streamline Cash Flow Management
Your standardized cash management policy should include guidelines on how much cash should be in each register, drawer, or safe. The policy must also outline how and when money transfers occur between those locations and to and from the bank.
You must transport cash to the bank and deposit it in your account before the company can access it. Businesses with a lot of cash intake must carefully manage cash flow to ensure smooth operations. Provisional credit is one solution to minimize the amount of time that cash is unusable, but it’s not perfect. CashSimple® provides an alternative to provisional credit that gives you faster, easier, and more secure access to your cash.
Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Cash Handling Security Procedures
There are so many different types of technology that address cash handling needs:
- Point of sale systems
- Smart safes
- Cash recyclers
- Video surveillance
- Real-time tracking
- Integrated reporting tools
These technologies can provide transparency and enhance security protocols. They also provide the data needed for cash forecasting which can improve daily business operations and growth plans.
The key is choosing the right technologies to serve your business’s specific needs. Focus on quality over quantity. Having too many different systems and software can overwhelm employees and cause integration and efficiency issues.
Implement Comprehensive Cash Management Service with Integrated Cash Logistics
Building your own cash-handling security procedures from scratch would be very difficult and time-consuming. It would require considering your cash storage options, reorders, audits, various money-handling service fees, and more. Thankfully, that isn’t necessary because Integrated Cash Logistics provides customizable all-in-one cash management solutions.
We can automate money counting, deposits, bill and change reorder, and reports. Integrated Cash Logistics’ solutions can be tailored to address the unique money security needs of your business, offering peace of mind and enhanced operational efficiency. If you are looking to optimize your cash handling procedures, schedule a 10-minute discovery call with us today to see if our technology and services are a good fit for your company.
