Smart Safes or Armored Car Service: What Does Your Business Need?

In the current labor environment, retailers are focused on how to maintain or improve store operations using automation. One area that is often overlooked is cash handling. Most retailers don’t quantify the cost of cash handling for their business but between counting, recounting, depositing, reconciling, and delivering cash to the bank to make a deposit or get change, there can be a huge time and labor commitment to cash. 

There are three solutions to help with your store’s cash handling: cash recyclers, smart safes, and armored car service. While all can help you increase efficiency and safety while reducing labor surrounding cash, one might be a better fit for your store than the other.

How to evaluate your store’s cash needs

How consumers make payments continue to evolve therefore you should analyze your store’s cash handling process every 3-5 years. Ask yourself the following questions to determine your current cash situation and which solution is right for you: 

• Where are the common inefficiencies in your cash handling processes? 
• How much labor is required to complete daily cash handling tasks? 
• How much cash and coin is being held in your store’s inventory? 
• What percentage of your sales are cash?
• How often do you make deposits?
• Who is responsible for making intraday or end-of-day deposits?
• How are deposits made?
• How much cash and coin inventory do our stores need?
• What are you paying to make deposits?
• How many depository relationships do you have?
• How much time does it take to create, make, and reconcile deposits?  
• Do you spend an extensive amount of time tracking cash discrepancies? 
• Do you have an issue with shortages or internal theft? 
• Could you benefit from more transparency into your business’ cash operations by location? 
• Has your business been targeted by criminals or located in a high-crime area? 
• Could you benefit from gaining access to your cash deposits overnight?

How to determine the right cash handling solution

Depending on how you answer these questions, it may be time to meet with a cash automation expert to find a solution that improves your business’ cash operations. Automated cash handling solutions like smart safes and cash recyclers, and armored car service can increase efficiency and safety while reducing labor, but it is important to understand the differences so you can make the best choice for your business. Below is the breakdown of benefits for smart safes and armored car service.

Smart Safes  

Accelerate deposit credit

Smart safes offer daily provisional credit, which credits a business’s account to reflect cash deposited in a smart safe before armored transport and bank deposit. Compared to traditional transport and deposit methods, this process gives businesses access to their funds much faster, usually overnight. 

Optimize cash control and reporting

When retailers invest in smart safe technology, they gain access to real-time reporting and visibility into their cash operations. You can easily log on and view how much cash your stores have with easy remote monitoring and management, so you never have to worry about being out of the loop with your business’s cash flow. The advanced reporting functionality of smart safes allow you to optimize your business’ cash flow by making smart, informed decisions based on near real-time data.

Eliminate trips to the bank

Many retailers 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. Smart safes keep employees onsite and safe by eliminating trips to the bank by providing daily provisional credit for deposits.

Reduce idle cash inventory on hand

Idle cash refers to the funds located across a company’s stores that aren’t being used. The amount can be substantial, which inevitably leaves stores and their staff more susceptible to unwanted risks like robbery or theft. With an automated solution like a smart safe, these risks decrease drastically. 

Mitigate loss

There are many opportunities for loss or theft to occur within cash operations. The more touchpoints, the more risk involved. A smart safe eliminates touchpoints in cash handling processes and provides owners and operators complete visibility of all safe activities such as the date and time stamp and personnel information associated with each deposit. 

Cash Recyclers

Cash recyclers are another great automated cash handling solution for retailers with large cash volumes and the need to make change and automate the full in-store cash handling process from the start-of-shift to the end-of-shift. Check out our “Is a Cash Recycler Solution Right for My Business?” insight for more information. 

Armored Car Service

Eliminate trips to the bank 

Investing in an armored car service can also eliminate trips to the banks. As previously mentioned, having to go to the bank for deposits and change is time-consuming, unsafe and removes employees from the store when they should be focusing on more valuable tasks like customer service. An armored car service safely takes your cash deposits to the bank and can re-stock your cash inventory so you can make proper change.

Reduce risk to staff and customers

By using an armored truck company to service your retail locations you will be hiring security professionals that are armed and trained in various scenarios to handle potential threats, lowering the risk of harm to your employees and customers. 

Reduce operating costs 

One of the other benefits of hiring armored car service is that they can help you reduce overall operating costs by creating a customized cash transportation schedule based on the amount of cash you have on hand and how often cash needs to be picked up.

For retailers, maximizing resources is crucial to operating efficiently and maintaining profit margins, especially during the current labor shortage. Businesses that accept cash payments will need to find the least costly and time-consuming way to make deposits. Armored car service, smart safes, and recyclers can help optimize cash operations in your business, if you need help deciding what’s best for you contact us today, or checkout our ROI calculator.