Month: September 2019

Cash handling in entertainment venues demand the streamlined technology that only smart safes can provide.

As a cashless culture seems to loom in the not-too-distant future, it looks as though entertainment venues and gaming venues might be among the last to give up operating on a cash-based system. In many ways, these venues are synonymous with cash, so giving it up would not be an easy transition.

Even bowling alleys and miniature golf parks operate on cash transactions, especially those located in smaller towns and rural areas with less competition as the cities have. Is there a chance these smaller retail businesses could someday go cashless?

Busy entertainment venues and gaming venues rely largely on cash payments, whether it’s in the gaming area, at the bar, in the restaurant, or in the gift shop. These are places where a high exchange of cash is commonplace. Transactions at these points of purchase should be quick and accurate, but these areas are vulnerable, making it easier for human error, counterfeit money, and an accumulation of cash in the tills, to be targets for theft.

The cashier’s area of gaming and entertainment venues operates as the central hub for other business units, therefore, exposing it to a greater risk of hold-ups and theft. In addition, stricter regulations in the gaming sector now require greater documentation and audit trails for transparency.

There’s also the challenge of relying on employees to manually count large amounts of money, which can be extremely time-consuming, labor intensive, and error-ridden. Manually handling the cash also makes it a lot harder to track thefts or discrepancies.

Managers in these revenue-growth environments must handle significant amounts of cash, while maintaining accountable records and reporting. Effective cash management is the smart way to combat loss, while improving accountability, and finding these efficient, secure cash handling solutions is rapidly becoming a top priority.

So, what’s the winning solution?

AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe Technology

Winning is everything in the gaming industry and putting AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe technology to work for you in this area is certainly a winning solution. Using smart safe technology can eliminate human error and other discrepancies and increase accuracy many times over. With smart safe technology your money is counted and tracked, ensuring more effective profit margins. Deposits are screened to identify counterfeit notes. Counterfeiting is a real problem and accounts for about $70 million in bogus money circulating in the U.S.

The AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe offers the advantages of the MEI SC Advance bill reader. The advanced recognition system with transmissive sensors sees all the way through each note contributing to a higher overall acceptance rate for legal notes while increasing security against fraud.

The sensors use a full spectral analysis with multiple wavelengths of light to look completely through each note and validate its authenticity. And even if the notes have been worn or damaged, these advanced recognition algorithms facilitate the industry’s highest acceptance rate.

Besides being easy to learn how to use, CashWizard Smart Safes are incredibly durable, with dead-latch locking mechanisms and anti-pry doors. The web-based software management provides real-time visibility to daily deposits, alerts, and reports.

Contact us to find out more about how the innovations and technology of AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safes will save your entertainment or gaming business money and time.

No matter the size of your retail business, it’s important to pay close attention to you and your employees’ cash handling practices. There are many risks associated with the handling of large volumes of money, and a good management plan can help lower costs, increase security, and decrease your overall risk.

We want to share with you five cash handling best practices that every retailer should adopt. By creating a game plan and adhering to it, you’ll increase the security of your business and improve your overall bottom line.

Perform a Self-Audit

Before you start implementing new cash management procedures, you first need to know exactly what’s going on at the till. Start by looking at the entire lifecycle of cash in your business—from the moment the cashier accepts money to the second it’s safely deposited at the bank or picked up by the armed courier.

Look for areas of weakness where theft or human error can occur and make a note of it. Once you’ve completed your audit, you’ll have a good idea of how good—or lax—the overall cash management processes are at your business.

Enforce the Rules

Cash management rules and “best practices” are only as good as the people who follow them. You, your managers, and employees must adhere to the established rules at all times. There should be no cutting corners, no guesstimating, and every single cent needs to be accounted for before the shop closes for the night.

Don’t rely on your managers to pass the information down to the employees. Make sure you have an active security and loss prevention training program that each new (and current) employee undergoes before they’re allowed to work the register. This way, they will feel more comfortable and confident working from within the boundaries of the new rules.

Separation of Duty

There is a higher risk of fraud and human error when the number of employees who handle cash increases. You should never allow two people to share the same register unless they each have a specific login. Otherwise, it makes it far too easy for employee A to steal from the register and blame it on employee B.

Accountability is crucial, and this is why it’s important to separate the entire cash management process over a group of employees. If only one or two people are in control, the risk for theft dramatically increases. Those who handle the recording of cash payments should not deposit funds, have access to bookkeeping, or perform vault transactions.

Reconcile Often

For many small retailers, it’s all too easy to get complicit in the day-to-day operations of your business. Sometimes errors might go unnoticed, and this can lead to an increased security risk. Ensure that there is a checks and balances system that logically ensures that cash transactions are recorded correctly.

Make it a point to count and balance your receipts daily, and then compare those with the actual deposit slips. You can also schedule random bookkeeping checks performed by yourself, your bookkeeper, or CPA. The randomness will add an additional layer of security to the overall cash management process.

Take Advantage of Technology

Investing in smart safe technology such as AMSEC CashWizard can not only help increase security but save you valuable time with their integrated cloud technology. You’ll have greater visibility of your cash and access to critical business information, including daily deposits.

It will also help free up the time that managers and cashiers spend dealing with cash by decreasing counts and runs to the bank. CashWizard can also integrate with POS systems as well as reconciliation software.

Take Back Control of Your Cash Management

Your job is to run and grow your business. By implementing an intelligent cash management plan and taking advantage of the multiple time and money-saving benefits of a smart safe, you’ll see an increased bottom line and overall security.

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of the AMSEC CashWizard line of smart safes, or would like to find a retailer, visit our contact page for more information.

College campuses are teeming with cash transactions for food, books, and more, but is cash management for college venues as sound as it could be?

On college campuses these days, you might think there’s little need for cash. After all we live in an almost cashless age where debit and credit cards seem to rule. However, believe it or not, cash is still the preferred way to pay by most people, including college students, especially for on-the-go and in-store purchases less than $20. And efficient cash management for college campus venues can be more secure with a smart safe.

Within a 24-hour timeframe, college students may interact with ten or more points of sale that take in cash. In fact, almost 90 percent of college students, carry cash. They may grab a coffee before rushing off to class, or pop in the bookstore to get what they need for a new class. There are numerous ways a small cash transaction might be needed on any given day. And as college and universities compete to attract more students, there are even more retail stores and amenities opening up on campuses.

Football stadiums and basketball arenas are also major attractions and hot spots for cash transactions. Any sports venue on or near a college campus is usually brimming with excitement and pockets-full-of-cash. This scale of cash handling can present problems for college administrators with concerns of how to reduce the costs of handling cash and the issues that go along with it, such as labor, internal theft, banking fees, and in-transit fees.

The good news is there are safer, smarter ways to manage the cash taken in at these various campus events and locales. Starting with a plan for how cash is handled provides guidelines for the staff and employees who manage, receive, handle, and safeguard cash.

The most prominent risk is usually human error and / or internal theft, so reducing the number of people handling cash is a good first step. Establishing a secure cash transfer process is also extremely important. A proven way to improve cash handling is using smart safe technology. Smart safes protect cash and help minimize the availability of large amounts of money at any one campus location.

AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe ensures greater security, transparency, and reduced risk. The advanced system provides automated bill counting and deposit functions as well as sophisticated reporting capabilities.

AMSEC’s high level smart safe technology enables campus venues to realize enhanced efficiencies of cash management. And the advanced reporting functions and dashboards provided by AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe can help administrators keep a closer watch on overall cash business conducted across the entire campus.

The AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe System has centralized management connecting safes via a cloud-based platform and it is accessible from any internet-capable device. It provides easy-to-use customer managed, remote administration of users and automated reports. The user-defined email alerts allow exception-based notifications. Web-based software management provides visibility to critical business information including daily deposits.

AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe features include:

• Superior build including dead-latch locking mechanisms and anti-pry doors
• Multi-Door Configuration with up to four single or bunch note bill readers
• Spill–resistant keypad holding up to 500 users with easy onsite or remote user administration

With its advanced analytics and legendary production quality, the AMSEC CashWizard Smart Safe is leading a revolution in the smart safe industry focused on empowering customers, cash-based businesses, and institutions everywhere.