Four Reasons Your Restaurant Needs a Smart Safe Program

Time is money, especially in the restaurant industry, and how you spend your time matters. Today, many restaurants spend a significant amount of time and resources on day-to-day cash operations such as counting and recounting cash, building end-of-day deposits, driving to and from the bank, and standing in line once you are there. However, smart safe technology can help you automate these daily cash tasks to streamline your overall cash handling processes, increase efficiency, reduce risk, and save on labor and resources. Here are four reasons that your restaurant should implement a smart safe program:

1. Accelerate deposit credit

Many restaurants take at least one trip to the bank daily to deposit cash, if not multiple. Not only is this time consuming, but it is also an extremely risky activity and takes employees away from more valuable tasks. You should consider a smart safe for your restaurant because it eliminates the need to take trips to the bank all together, and your cash-in-transit provider will also partner with your bank or financial institution to provide your restaurant with daily provisional credit. This benefit gives you overnight access to funds deposited into your safe, lessens the need for cash-in-transit pickups and bank trips, and ultimately, improves your business’ cash liquidity.

2. Optimize cash control and reporting

When restaurants invest in smart safe technology, they gain access to real-time reporting and visibility into their restaurant’s cash operations. You can easily log on and view how much cash your restaurants have 24/7 with easy remote monitoring and management so you never have to worry about being out of the loop with your restaurant’s cash flow. Smart safe solutions give you access to view contents of safes by currency in real time, access cash drops and armored pickup information per safe, export detailed safe activity reports, manage user access for safes, access online smart safe training, and create and manage support tickets. The advanced reporting functionality of smart safes allow you to make smart business decisions about your restaurant and its performance based on real-time, accurate data and optimize your cash flow.

3. Reduce operating costs and improve time management

Have you considered how much time you and your staff spend on cash handling procedures? Day-to-day tasks like counting currency, verifying amounts, balancing and reconciling your cash registers, and taking deposits to the bank add up to a surprising number of hours per week. If you haven’t thought about how your limited resources can be better allocated, there’s no better time than now to consider a smart safe solution as new challenges for the restaurant industry continue to develop.

One of the many developing challenges for restaurants is rising wages, upward toward $15 an hour in the next few years. The COVID-19 pandemic also reduced the overall labor pool which left businesses struggling to find and keep staff, and they are paying more per hour to do so. This means you have to think critically about the cost and efficiency of your cash operations. With the cost of labor increasing in conjunction with the reduced labor pool, restaurant leaders should evaluate how much time is spent on low value activities.

“Most employees in restaurants are hourly and automating cash handling allows managers to optimize scheduling by bringing in one less person when a restaurant typically creates deposits and takes them to the bank,” says Lenny Evansek, Senior Vice President of National Retail Business Development at Loomis. “Time and cost of labor is more valuable than ever, and implementing a smart safe program allows them to have one less employee accountable for drawer counts and saves time by having an automated dual control process.”

4. Mitigate loss

Restaurants carry more cash on daily basis than many industries and this has repeatedly made restaurants a target for both internal and external theft. According to the National Restaurant Association, employee theft accounts for 75 percent of restaurant losses—an astounding $36 billion, which can be devastating for a restaurant.

Between counting, recounting, depositing, reconciling, and delivering cash to the bank, there are many opportunities for loss or theft within your restaurant’s cash operations. The more touch points, the more risk involved. A smart safe eliminates touch points in cash-handling processes and also provides restaurant owners and operators complete visibility of all safe activities such as date and time stamp and personnel information associated with each deposit. Smart safes create individualized employee PINs to ensure the amounts are correct and helps keep employees accountable, without having to implement additional training and processes, which can be time-consuming and inefficient.

Smart safes have changed the way that restaurants think about and handle their cash. Restaurants that have implemented smart safe programs not only increase efficiency and save on valuable time and labor costs, but they also reduce risk to the business.

Click here to learn more about how Loomis’s smart safes with SafePoint work and find the perfect safe for your restaurant’s needs.