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Reducing labour costs through better cash management

Dave Lunn TellermateIn the age of electronic, mobile, and now wearable payments, businesses around the world are incurring more costs relating to processing payments every single year. Plus, the average business now spends a greater proportion of its revenues offering consumers increasingly diverse payment methods. Rather worryingly for employees though, these costs are almost inevitably being clawed back at their expense, as retailers look to cut costs elsewhere…

Because, what is the primary area that retailers consider when cutting costs? Headcount. According to an article published by the BRC, cutting labour costs is still top of the agenda for retailers as increased costs continue to hit profits.

But, cutting labour costs in the right way, without reducing productivity, morale, efficiency or levels of customer services can be a challenge. For companies still running lean from the recession, the idea of cutting yet more staff is both unappealing and even inadvisable. Crucially, in this context retailers should consider that reducing labour costs shouldn’t necessarily mean reducing headcount, but instead, reducing the amount of hours billed against inefficient and unproductive tasks.

So how does this relate to cash management?Reducing Labour Costs

Did you know that implementing a more effective cash management process could actually save your business money, in terms of both reducing labour costs and reducing the man-hours attributed to low ROI tasks?

You might be surprised to hear that menial tasks such as counting cash by hand can actually have a direct impact on your bottom line. But, ultimately, all inefficient processes cost a business money, and poor cash management is no exception. Outdated processes, slow and repetitive manual tasks and ineffective technology could all mean that your staff spend a significant amount of time each day managing your cash.

What if these man-hours could be allocated elsewhere? Or even cut completely?

Automating manual processes

The first step in reducing this outlay is to automate your manual processes. When it comes to cash management, there are a large number of manual, repetitive and often unproductive tasks that a business performs each and every day. At the very top of this list is cash counting.

From manual cash counting by hand, to two employee cash drawer reconciliation rules, processing and counting the amount of cash taken each day is a time consuming task.

If each cash drawer takes an average of 15 minutes to reconcile manually; multiply this by the number of shift changeovers, and the number of registers in your stores; and the time spent reconciling tills quickly adds up to a staggering amount of not just wasted time, but related labour costs.

Increasing efficiency by investing in cash management solutions such as cash counters or intelligent cash drawers that count cash quickly and easily will mean fewer cashiers leaving the floor, to perform these manual tasks. Plus, with employees no longer required to spend large amounts of time reconciling their tills, this could mean shorter shifts, or reduced overtime expenditure.

Better yet, the more detailed audit trails of your cash created by these devices means that managers can spend less time investigating losses. All this means lower labour costs, without cutting headcount, not just allowing you to cut costs; but also freeing up your employees to look after the things that really count – your customers.

Want to learn more about automating your cash management? Download the Ebook on counting cash by weight.

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