The Lifecycle of a Dollar Bill

When it comes to securing your cash, improving your business’s efficiency, and setting up your operations for continued success, you don’t hesitate to take the necessary steps. However, one of the most overlooked ways to reduce shrink and improve employee productivity is actually a rather basic aspect of your day-to-day operations: your cash management process.

Every time that paper money is handled more than it has to be, you are introducing additional opportunities for theft, mistakes, and delays that are preventing your business from focusing on what really matters. Combined with the fact that 71 percent of a business’s cash-related costs result from how employees are handling front-of-store activities, it becomes quite clear that making a change can save you time and money.

So where is your current cash management process falling short, and how can your business implement the necessary changes? Let’s start by breaking down the lifecycle of a dollar bill and identifying where improvements can be made.

How Your Current Cash Management Lifecycle Can Affect Your Business

Your current cash management lifecycle likely involves many touchpoints that not only introduce unnecessary risks, but also manual and redundant tasks that can quickly add up to substantial time away from your customers. 

The lifecycle of a dollar bill in your current operations may look like this:

• Customer’s Wallet
  Cash coming from customers needs to be manually counted and checked for counterfeit, which takes valuable time and isn’t guaranteed to be foolproof. 

• Cashier to Register
  In addition to cashiers counting cash with each transaction, they also have to manually check cash levels at the end of each shift to see if replenishment is required, introducing another opportunity for mistakes.

• Cash Register Close Out
  At the end of a shift or business day, cash is counted again. In some cases, cashiers must be supervised when putting the cash into a vault or safe, taking time away from more vital tasks and creating a chance for cash to be miscounted or stolen.

• Back-Office Balancing and Reconciliation
  At regular intervals, cash handlers need to manually verify cash levels, check for counterfeit currency, and prepare cash for recirculation or deposit. 

• Preparation for Deposit
  A potential fifth count of the same cash can occur when cash handlers manually prepare, validate, and transfer cash for armored car pickup.

• Delivery to the Bank
  Finally, cash is counted and verified again by the bank before the final deposit into the account.

Make the Move to the Optimal Cash Management Lifecycle

When you stop and document each step of your current cash management lifecycle, the inefficiencies and risks become quite obvious. So how can you quickly and seamlessly make necessary changes? Fortunately, Burroughs has the experience and tools to get your business where it needs to be. 

For instance, introducing a cash recycler or a smart safe to your cash management ecosystem can move the number of touchpoints of your cash down to just three, while also reducing the risks to your bottom line. 

When this technology is implemented, the lifecycle of a dollar bill could instead look like this:

• Customer’s Wallet
  A cash recycler allows for real-time insights into your business by automatically counting currency, returning the accurate change, processing checks, and checking for counterfeit bills. It also creates an auditable log of each transaction and links your data to a larger digitized system.

• Smart Safe, Cash Recycler, or Integrated Self-Checkout
  Once accepted, cash is secured in a smart safe or a cash recycler that safely stores cash in cassettes for future use or deposit into a bank. Your business can use authentication to secure direct access to cash and reduce the number of necessary bank runs. You can also integrate note and coin recycling terminals into self-checkout stations to give your customers more payment options and your staff more time to focus on enhancing the customer experience.

• Deposit at the Bank
  After cash is counted, verified, and secured in cassettes, it can be deposited and made available for credit toward future needs.

Of course, using a smart safe or cash recycler is just one way to improve efficiency. The team at Burroughs can work with your business to find the right combination of devices and services to fit your specific needs. 

Reimagine a Bill’s Lifecycle and Protect Your Cash

At a time in which profits are increasingly hard to achieve, it makes sense for businesses to closely evaluate each process and function that shapes their operations. However, one of the biggest areas where improvements can be made is also one of those most overlooked: the lifecycle of a dollar bill as it moves through your business.

So if you are ready to introduce new levels of security, efficiency, and peace of mind to your cash management lifecycle, let the experts at Burroughs identify the right payment and transaction technology that will allow your staff to spend more time focusing on customers, and less time stressing about mishandling cash. 

Ready to learn more? Contact the team at Burroughs.