This article is brought to you by Cash Depot.

Many retailers are spending a lot of money on their cash. Cash management can have high costs, especially in fees related to banking, labor and provisional credit. Together these expenses can cost retailers $500 per month or more 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,” said Burke. Things like equipment and software, maintenance, training fees, security fees, holiday surcharges, cellular communication fees, change orders for bills and time fees for excess minutes spent on pickups or drops. “Smart safes are really about saving time and improving safety in your store—not about saving you money.”

They speed up time to prepare deposits, reduce trips to the bank and keep better track of cash with accurate counting and reporting, but they rarely reduce costs, he said.

Cash Depot’s BANK IN A BOX “changes how stores handle cash by fixing some of the most expensive parts of cash management,” said Burke. The system is an all-in-one solution, combining smart safe with cash recycling and ATM features. “Instead of letting cash sit in a safe, BANK IN A BOX reuses your in-store cash to refill your registers. This means you don't have to order as much cash from the bank—or maybe none at all. Even better, you reduce your armored courier costs by bundling your in-store cash management with your on-site ATM cash services.”

The cash recycling feature also helps save on provisional credit fees for next-day deposits, which can cost $250-$300 per month per store for the average retailer. “Provisional credit is a standard feature of most smart safe and cash recycling systems,” said Burke. With regular smart safes, you pay fees on all the money you put into the safe for deposit. So, for example, if you deposit $5,000, you pay provisional credit on the whole amount.

“But with BANK IN A BOX, it’s more than an in-store cash recycler. It is also a consumer financial services kiosk and ATM. You can get credited for money dispensed out to your ATM users. So, if you deposit $5,000 but customers withdraw $3,000 from your ATM, you only pay fees on the remaining $2,000. That's a big difference in your monthly costs,” Burke explained.

Learn more about cutting cash management costs in part one of this two-part series.

Learn more about Cash Depot.