STORES Magazine - April 2009 - (Page 56) LPINFORMATION / CASH MANAGEMENT Follow the Money Where cash is still king, closed management systems reign BY DAVID P. SCHULZ hrinkage is not synonymous with theft. While it is t ru e t h a t st ealing — b y customers or insiders — typically is the largest component of retail shrink, there are occasions when money just seems to evaporate between the time the customer hands it over and the bank records the day’s proceeds. S The problem is particularly prevalent in cash-intensive retail environments like quick-serve restaurants and convenience stores, where customer traffic is high and transaction amounts low. for the armored car pick-up. Today, Credit card use in these environments however, the system is fairly automated has been growing, “but a lot more of my and the cash much better protected, pribusiness is still in cash,” says Greg marily because of the use of a smart safe Vasquez, a McDonald’s franchisee in that allows for armored car pick-ups to Hemet, Calif. occur even when Vasquez isn’t on the The impact of the five-year-old Check premises. Clearing for the 21st Century Act — Both the safes and the pick-up service known as Check 21 — on quick-serve are provided by Hunt Valley, Md.-based restaurants and neighborhood c-stores Dunbar Armored. The safes are dehas been minimal. Cash is still king in signed to accept currency at any time of these operations, and protecting that the day or night after employees input cash — making sure the amount doesn’t PIN codes, and a counterfeit detection shrink through “evaporation” — is the system operates as the bills are processed challenge for tens of thousands of retailand recorded. The machine tallies which ers, many of whom operate multiple loindividual put in the money, at what cations as franchisees or licensees of time and in what amount. major retail brands. “It looks like an ATM, Not long ago, Vasquez but it functions like a reNeed Armored notes, much of his daily verse ATM,” Vasquez Transport? duties consisted of oversays. Consider: seeing the cash-handling “The safes can retain Cash volume operations — counting up to 13,000 transacNumber of locations out, reconciling, writing tions in memory, track Comfort level for risk deposit slips and waiting up to 240 users via 56 STORES / APRIL 2009 unique PIN codes, and produce an audit trail capable of producing more than 30 receipts and management reports,” says Tom Grem, product manager for the Dunbar Cache$ystem. Among the reports that can be generated are end-ofday activity, shift, individual user and armored pick-up. Some safes can function as a treasury and have the ability to dispense cash as well as accept and validate deposits. Wireless communications Cash management systems have not undergone the rapid evolution or explosive growth of supply chain software or staff-scheduling applications. The systems employed today began to take shape in the late 1990s and, other than the switch from metal canisters to heavy duty molded plastic in safes and for transport, the technology hasn’t changed all that much over the years, Grem says. “What has changed is the communications component, with the WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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