retail cash management best practices

How to Ensure Your Cashiers Adopt Retail Cash Management Best Practices

When it comes time to onboard a new cashier employee, it’s essential to train them properly in retail cash management best practices. In a busy retail store, it’s far too easy for a poorly trained cashier to make a mistake—or worse yet—pocket some money from the till.

Even experienced cashiers who didn’t receive proper training can make mistakes. Bad cash management practices will can result in significant store losses. $10 here and $20 there adds up really quickly over a few short days.

Here are six things that store owners and managers can do to help ensure that their cashiers are well-trained in retail cash management.

Audit Your Processes

Before you can begin training or re-training, you’ll want to take a few to perform an audit on how well your employees are trained. Without letting anyone know, quietly observe the processes that your cashiers use when handling cash.

If you see them doing something wrong, ask them the reasons why and then show them the correct way. It may take a few days to a week or so, but you’ll eventually have a good idea of where the problems lie.

Implement New Policies

After you’ve performed your audit, now is the time to create a new cash management policy. You should train not only the new employees but the older ones as well. Before you open for business, call a mandatory meeting and pass out a printed version of your new policy.

Go through each of the steps, both old and new. After the training session is over, have each employee sign and date at the bottom that they have read the new instructions. Then give them a copy of the document—and keep one for your records.

Implement a Chain of Custody 

Implementing and maintaining a custody-of-cash policy is critical to mitigating risk. The more hands that touch your cash, the higher the odds are that human error or theft will occur. A chain of custody can also quickly help track down the problem if something goes wrong.

You should know exactly who’s responsible for touching your cash and where it is at all times. This will increase employee accountability and help prevent something from going wrong. It can also help cut down on the time managers, and employees spend when trying to reconcile.

Train on your POS System

Even if you hired experienced cashiers, don’t automatically assume that they’re familiar with your POS system as they differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Show them what each button does and the best way to perform their necessary job functions. If need be, invest in a newer POS system as it can exponentially increase efficiencies.

For new employees, the various unfamiliar buttons on the POS system can be intimidating and confusing. Train, train, and train some more. Communicate often with the employee and ask them if there’s anything that they’re struggling with or don’t understand. A little communication can significantly help cut down on the human error factor.

Counterfeit Money

It’s been estimated that there’s around $220 million floating around in counterfeit currency in the U.S. Funny money is no laughing matter, and it can cost your business dearly. In addition to training your employees to identify bogus bills and be alert at all times, you should adopt some form of mechanical detection device such as a pen or machine.

While many businesses utilize the counterfeit detection pens, you shouldn’t rely upon them solely. As computers, printers, and ink technologies have improved over the years, so have the counterfeit bills. It’s entirely possible that your pen will fail to detect certain types of counterfeit bills. The Secret Service and Federal Reserve have also stated that counterfeit detection pens don’t always with 100% accuracy.

Invest in a Smart Safe

Smart safes can help reduce the time both cashiers and managers manage cash. They also automate several manual processes that are often prone to human error and theft. Many smart safes, such as AMSEC CashWizard, have built-in counterfeit detection devices, which are many times more accurate and reliable than a detection pen.

The CashWizard safe also allows for centralized management via a cloud-based platform that gives you access to remote administration, critical data, and reports that can provide valuable insights. These features will help your business run more efficiently and securely.

AMSEC Cash Wizard Smart Safes

Proper employee training in cash management best practices means giving them the tools they need to efficiently and effectively do their jobs. A smart safe, such as

CashWizard from AMSEC, can help reduce human error, theft, and improve the overall cash management processes of your business. If you’d like to learn more about the value and benefits that the AMSEC line of smart safes can bring to your business, contact us on our website.