Taking the Burden Out of Cash: The Virtues of a Commercial Currency Processing Solution

9/8/2016

Businesses from all across the retail spectrum face one common challenge – managing cash. Having to process currency can be extremely time-consuming, fraught with fraud risks, and make it difficult to access vital working capital. Cash processing solutions offer a critical opportunity to drive important efficiency around expense controls, while gaining provisional credit for deposits, improving cash flow and enabling treasury to access critical working capital more quickly.

Q. Cash remains king for many retail businesses. What are the challenges companies are most concerned with when it comes to handling their cash?

A. It’s true that consumers are continuing to use cash for many purchases. The reasons for this often include a desire to keep credit card spending under control and fears of cyber security breaches. This leaves retailers with some costly challenges, such as the time employees take to reconcile accounts, time required to deposit cash in the bank, employee safety and business risks associated with fraud and security, and an inability to access vital working capital in a timely manner. Controlling expenses and loss prevention are top of mind for businesses today, so having employees handling cash processing is a big concern. And with more and more banks consolidating their banking centers, it is becoming more difficult to conveniently drop off deposits. These trends are driving the push for greater efficiency, which makes currency processing solutions all the more attractive.

Q. How can a currency processing solution make a meaningful difference for a retailer?

A. Today’s state-of-the-art currency processing solutions are exceptional for automating cash handling. Employees simply feed currency into the smart safe’s note reader, which verifies the currency and tracks each deposit by employee. This virtually eliminates errors, as well as reduces the risk of theft. And since receipts are collected by an armored courier service, employee safety is also protected. Eliminating manual processing of cash frees up personnel from labor-intensive deposit preparation, allowing them to focus on revenue generating activities and improving customer service – all while cutting costs. In the case of Fifth Third’s currency processing solution, we provide advance provisional credit for deposits within 24 hours of being fed into the device, which dramatically improves access to vital working capital.

Q. Are there benefits beyond the expense controls, cost savings, efficiency, safety and improved access to working capital?

A. One of the hot buzz words in retail today is data. Companies are increasingly looking for opportunities to harness the power of the data in their systems for greater business efficiency and profit. A currency processing solution is an excellent source of real-time data. Armed with insights on the company’s cash position, treasury is in a far stronger position to make faster, better decisions.

Q. What should a retailer be looking for in a currency processing solution provider?

A. Retailers should look for a banking partner that truly understands their business needs. At Fifth Third, we take a truly consultative approach, examining our client’s financial supply chain, and receivables and payables processes. The right provider will go onsite to better appreciate current procedures and obtain a clearer picture of the retailer’s specific challenges in order to identify what a future state will look like. Developing key performance indicators provides a means for measuring the success of the solution and provides invaluable feedback that can be used to fine tune the implementation. One of the best practices we recommend is for retailers to onboard stakeholder from across the organization, such as loss prevention, human resources, operations and IT. These groups will all be impacted by a currency processing solution, so it’s important to bring them into the process early.

Q. Is there any reason a retailer should be hesitant about this technology?

A. Frankly, the cost of manual cash processing is only going to continue to go up. With the right solution in place, treasury can dramatically improve cash and currency processing, enhance cash flow and help to liberate trapped working capital that can then be used to support critical business objectives. Hesitating to put a proven, cost-effective technology solution in place could put retailers at a competitive disadvantage. We believe it’s well worth exploring.

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