Any company that handles cash daily needs an efficient cash management process.
Zarph's CEO, António Oliveira, challenges companies to think more efficiently about their cash management processes.
I'm sorry, but you probably are! If your company still opts for the traditional process of counting and verifying the count, followed by counting and verifying the count, etc., we have little doubt that this is happening! It's time to stop and think about your company's cash management.
The cashier receives information on totals, organizes the money, records the count, and verifies that everything is correct; they sign the delivery document in use at the company, and ensure the money, along with its record, reaches the supervisor so that there are not errors, the supervisor repeats the count and also signs the delivery sheet which the cashier keeps as proof of delivery, files the document in a folder religiously kept in a cabinet, and, to avoid problems because you never know, may have made a copy to keep elsewhere.
The supervisor puts the money into a deposit safe and records the total amount in the day's documents and in the safe's inventory documents, which may cover more than one day, for delivery of documentation to the cash transport company that your company has contracted. Naturally, the cash transport company receives the money, and checks, counts again and confirms or denies the amounts declared by your company. In the simplest case, the count is accepted and confirmed, now only the bank's treasury remains to accept the count as good, as indicated by the Cash Transport Company (CTC)
No matter how fast the entire process is, and relying on the practice of people who make this activity their way of life, we always have many minutes in the process! Minutes are money that someone will have to pay. Can you guess who? Yes, you're right.
It is the sum of all these steps that increases the costs of your cash management operation. Let's see:
Manual counting and control – counting money manually is always a time-consuming task that requires multiple human resources and is susceptible to human error and, potentially, theft;
Transport – besides the companies that choose to personally deliver the money to their bank, increasing the risk of theft, some companies opt to hire this service. At this stage of the operation, the efficiency of your process plays a decisive role, as depending on the number of collections and amount of cash transported previously established, you may not be effectively monetizing this service;
Security – internal thefts are still a painful reality for companies. With an open system of handling money, your company is also exposed to robberies, which not only financially harms your company but also traumatizes those involved;
Your customer – keeping your employees focused on customer service and satisfaction should be the goal. For this, you can't occupy their time with all these dispensable manual tasks.
Contrary to what most people think, the most used payment method in Portugal is still cash, and according to the Bank of Portugal, this is the method that incurs the most costs – for banks, merchants, and consumers.
Defining a Cash Management strategy should be a priority for any company.
That's why defining a Cash Management/Treasury strategy should be a priority for any company. Okay, what now?
The first step should be to analyze your entire operation, from the time taken for each task to the costs associated with each phase of your management. After the study, it's important to identify the existing solutions in the market, and the best technology to automate all these processes, such as payment and/or deposit equipment and specialized treasury management software, in an integrated and centralized way.
The technological option may involve both deposit and payment equipment. Any of the ranges available on the market can contribute to minimizing the identified problem. Some of these ranges are prepared to perform credit to account and, indeed, some banks accept these operations.
With the equipment, whether for deposit or payment (depending on the type of business), it is possible to automate all manual tasks, such as counts, note and coin authentication, shift closures, etc. With specialized software, you can integrate and centralize data on each transaction, such as amount deposited/paid, denomination of notes and coins, planning of cash collection routes (with the use of an alarm system), control and validation of bank commissions, etc.
With this investment, it is possible to eliminate a series of costs associated with cash management and significantly increase the efficiency of your Treasury Management process. Additionally, you gain control over your operation, monitoring and analyzing all transactions in real-time. This type of information will give you the power to make quick decisions based on real data.
By outlining a cash management strategy with the technology available in the market, you are one step ahead of the competition. With a faster, more efficient, and innovative process, you will have more time to build a closer and more trustworthy relationship with the most important participant in this whole process – your customer.
Originally published in Computerworld
