This article is brought to you by Cash Depot.
Managing cash comes at a cost—and even smart safes and cash recyclers have fees, hidden costs and surcharges that eat into retailers’ profits.
“Retailers put so much effort and expertise into optimizing their business, lowering expenses and increasing efficiency through automating inventory systems, integrating point of sale and creating faster checkout experiences for customers,” said Sean Burke, CEO at Cash Depot. “Don’t waste those efforts by having high costs associated with your cash management system.”
There are three ways operators can reduce expenses for cash management, said Burke.
- Avoiding hidden bank fees
- Reducing provisional credit charges
- Lowering the labor needed for handling cash
“Retailers can cut their cash management costs by up to 50% by eliminating these things,” he said.
Banks often have high interest rates and numerous hidden costs, including cash deposit fees which average about $35 per month, cash order fees ($116 per month), and cash collection and processing fees ($37 per month). Altogether these can cost retailers up to $200 per month per location.
“Cash management systems are supposed to alleviate those costs, but many smart safe and cash recycling providers have a litany of their own fees, like change orders for bills, courier costs, fees for additional time spent on pickups or drop-offs, security fees, training fees, holiday surcharges, cellular communication charges, and maintenance and repair fees,” explained Burke.
Another burdensome cost from smart safe and cash recycling systems is provisional credit. Many retailers take advantage of next-day deposits, but until the physical cash is collected and processed, which can take up to nine days, banks and smart safe providers can charge interest on the cash as provisional credit. This can cost $250-$300 per month for the average retailer – per site.
Lastly, manually counting cash is time-intensive and leaves room for error, increasing your labor and operating costs. “Smart safes help, but smart safe users often find themselves still manually counting and recording cash, especially if they have the less expensive single-note acceptors. Even with multi-note acceptors, retailers with smart safes have to count out, sort and arrange for daily register cash and change before making their daily deposits,” said Burke.
He said Cash Depot’s BANK IN A BOX cuts costs for all three of these cash management expenses. “It eliminates hidden charges by consolidating your store cash management into a full-service program without the additional hassles and costs.”
BANK IN A BOX consolidates store cash management, including equipment, software, courier services, communications and security in one easy, upfront cost—without the hidden fees. The system even tackles labor fees through cash recycling and fast, accurate, multi-note acceptance and dispense. “Deposit your store cash and then request your register funds for start-of-shift,” said Burke. “It is all tracked, recorded and reported in the system. No more hand-counting the cash.”
BANK IN A BOX also reduces the costs of next-day deposits with competitive rates and recycling deposited store cash out to ATM users. “If your store deposits $5,000 in cash a day, a smart safe system would charge you provisional credit for that full amount,” Burke points out. “With BANK IN A BOX, half of that money could be recycled out to customers—and you only pay for the $2,500 left.”
“By reducing some of these high costs and excessive fees with the right cash management system, retailers can save hundreds of dollars per month on their money. That’s a game changer,” said Burke.
This is part one in a two-part series on cash management. Look for part two later this week.
Learn more about Cash Depot.