Stop Sending Your Managers to the Bank

This article is brought to you by  Cash Depot. 

How much does it cost for a manager to make a bank run? The answer is more than monetary.

"When a manager leaves the store mid-shift to go on a cash run, the staff who stay behind are stretched thin," said Doug Marquis, chief revenue officer of Cash Depot. "They're often left without a way to address customer concerns that need manager attention."

Even with tools like smart safes, ATMs and armored couriers, managers still often have to leave the store to handle deposits and change orders, manage multiple bank accounts and resolve cash exceptions. It's a time-consuming task that can add up to several hours per week—that gets expensive at manager rates.

Across the whole cash management process, store employees can spend as much as 68 hours per month manually handling cash. "Cash management is filled with these invisible time drains," said Marquis.

Estepp Energy, a Kentucky-based convenience retailer with 14 locations, identified the operational challenges that came with cash management. "With a wide network, we had multiple bank accounts at multiple different banks," said Erika Leake, senior accountant at Estepp Energy. "This meant more work for the accounting staff with reconciling the accounts and transferring money."

As the retailer grew, it started to see lower productivity at the store level, an increased administrative burden for accounting, elevated risk from handling cash off-site and limited access to cash services when the banks were closed.

Estepp Energy then implemented BANK IN A BOX, a fully integrated platform that combines a library of consumer financial services, multi-denomination ATM withdrawals and on-site cash management. "It eliminated the time-consuming task of maintaining a separate ATM and having to fill it, which previously meant additional trips to the bank for change," said Leake.

With BANK IN A BOX, Leake said Estepp Energy shifted from task-based cash management to system-based cash management. It replaced multiple vendors and manual processes with a single system in the store.

"Keeping managers in the store unlocks better customer service, stronger team oversight, higher merchandising execution and higher sales per shift," said Marquis. "It's not just about cash, it's about having more control over your staff's time and workload. Shifting to in-store cash management can drastically improve operational efficiency."

This is part one of a two-part series brought to you by Cash Depot. Read the full case study to learn more about how BANK IN A BOX helped Estepp Energy streamline store cash operations.