Best Practices of Cash Handling Procedures for Retail Businesses

Retail is a tough, dynamic, and highly competitive world. Cash handling procedures, best practices, and technology can be the key differentiators for a retail store. As a result, it will help to achieve efficient and effective operations.

Here are some cash handling procedures and best practices that shops can use to improve their cash handling process:

1) Developing and Enforcing Standardized Policies and Procedures is Rule No.1 in Cash Handling Procedures:

Cash handling in retail is not that easy. Retailers must follow cash handling procedures and best practices to handle cash in the store. Retailers must create a standard operating process for handling cash. Once the procedures are developed, related rules and policies must be listed for employees, store managers, and staff members to follow. These policies relate to when to change the cashier at the POS. When to prepare deposits, when to count the cash, and when to make bank deposits. Retailers can create a handbook for standard procedures, rules, and checklists, which must be reviewed and certified daily by managers to ensure adherence to the rules and accountability.

2) Invest in Effective Cash Management Technology:

Meanwhile, if we talk about cash handling procedures and best practices, cash security is a key concern for most retailers. Therefore, an optimum amount of cash must be kept at the store. Nonetheless, the right cash management technology can help the retailer improve cash handling in the retail store and maintain its security. Smart safes or currency counters are secure, can count cash faster, and ensure error-free cash handling. Some of these solutions can track the cash levels, detect fake cash, and also validate transactions. Get a 30-day Free ARI POS Today.

3) Implement a Robust POS is the Most Important Thing in Cash Handling Procedures:

A strong POS System is essential. Most importantly, it is the system through which cash comes into contact for the first time with the business. Such a solution must systematize cash handling, provide paperless receipts to customers, and integrate cash logging tools and recyclers. In other words, using POS for your retail store is very important in cash handling procedures and best practices

4) Train the Employees:

Once retailers employ standardized procedures for cash handling and cash management technology, the next step is to train the employees to use this technology. Employees must be aware of all the processes involved, the rules to use the technology, and the steps to avoid keeping cash safe and secure. They must learn to identify fake notes, use POS, and use proactive controls to make no errors. 

5) Have the Right Number of Staff Members:

Retailers must ensure that the number of employees in the retail store is enough to deal with the work going on at the same time, such as handling customers, inventory management, and supervising the register. Too many staff members lead to clutter and increase labor costs, while too few employees may result in overworked staff, poor customer service, and no staff for a particular activity.  This is one of the most important practices from cash handling procedures best practices.

6) Enough Documentation:

POS will be useful for advanced cash management techniques. However, enough documentation is mandatory for effective cash handling. It helps retailers to find the mistakes, identify their source, and correct them as soon as possible. As a result, it will help to reduce the negative impact on the business. Furthermore, an annual audit is important for every business to assess the tax liability and other regulatory and financial compliance. No one can impose penalties if retailers ensure accurate and good accounting and record-keeping are in place at the store. Furthermore, these assessments should be accurate.

7) Allocate Fewer Staff Members for Cash Handling:

Retailers must not allocate the task of handling cash to multiple people as it may lead to confusion, difficulty in tracking, and higher exposure to risks. Retailers must authorize only a few people to handle cash at the store. The number of cashiers must be enough so that the work is managed effectively, and tracking incidences of cash mishandling becomes easier. Furthermore, a person who started the cash handling for a day must close the accounting before the shift ends to make the operations efficient. In short, allowing a limited number of staff members to handle cash is very is a best practice in cash handling procedures best practices.

8) Perform Frequent Reconciliation:

Every day is a busy day for retailers. Furthermore, if you will not look into the day-to-day operations or cash, then it may lead to exposure to risk. Therefore, retailers must implement enough checks and balances at every stage to reduce the probability of errors. Such checks and balances include: 

• The receipts must be counted and balanced daily and compared with the actual deposit slips.
• CA or CPA must conduct random checks on accounts.
• The responsibilities should be distributed to different staff members. For example, closing the registers, making deposits, counting cash, and updating the accounts, etc.

Retailers must work toward implementing all of the above-mentioned cash handling procedures best practices at their stores. This will identify frauds, threats, and errors related to cash and vulnerabilities from a financial standpoint. Before that, they must ensure that the managers and employees understand the importance of cash handling. Above all, make it a priority task to keep the cash flowing in the business securely.