Using Smart Safes to Optimize Cash Management

Posted by jack reacher on March 23rd, 2020

More and more businesses are turning to smart technology for efficiency and peace of mind. Smart safes in particular are seeing a spike in popularity as organizations turn to these devices for safely securing and managing their cash.

A smart safe for cash management is a device that facilitates automatically accepting, validating, recording and storing cash. It has the ability to connect to the internet, the PoS (Point of Sale), other cash management solutions and back-office systems. These capabilities allow the smart safe to provide real-time visibility of its contents plus an audit trail of all transactions.

Depending on the manufacturer, smart safes are designed with many features and capabilities. The three fundamentals to all the products are user interface, bill validator and controller.

The user interface enables users to handle all cash related activities effectively. Some solutions can generate user statistics, cash flow visualizations, event logs, pick-up schedules and more. Relevant users can view smart safe operations around the clock from any connected location.

The bill validator is the heart of a smart safe. It performs key tasks like validating the legitimacy of all inserted bills. Once validated, the bills are moved to cassettes for storage.

The controller consists of the electronics responsible for combining the user interface, validator and all other electric peripherals.

Let’s look at the major reasons smart safes are gaining popularity:

Cash protection: cash is stored in smart safes whether at the POS or in the back-office in a cassette or tamper-proof bag.

Built-in note validation: smart safes have the ability to detect and reject counterfeit cash at the POS.

Provisional credit: many smart safe solutions have partnered with financial institutions to ensure that money that goes into the safe is credited before it reaches the bank.

Only CIT (Cash in Transit) staff has access: the key purpose of a smart safe is to reduce theft from insiders and outsiders. To open a smart safe two sets of credentials are required usually – the driver’s and the store manager’s.

Reduction of CIT fees: smart safes generate and monitor data such as the volume of cash and its denominations. It is easy to know when the cash needs to be collected. This helps in avoiding unnecessary trips by the armored transportation and increases cost savings.

Integration capability: smart safes can be integrated with smart drawers to provide an end-to-end cash management solution.

Before choosing a smart safe for your business take the following points into consideration:

Physical placement: POS smart safes can be bolted to the floor, installed into furniture or be free standing. Back-office smart safes are available in a variety of sizes to fit the space that is available. Ensure your smart safe fits into your current set-up.

User friendly: Will your employees receive training from your smart safe provider? Lack of training will lead to low user adoption.

Serviceability: Ensure you have a clear picture of how much repairs will cost and be clear about the service level agreements. If your smart safe is malfunctioning how quickly will a technician arrive?

Connectivity: confirm if the data transmission from your smart safe to your network is secure.

For businesses from any industry that handles cash, smart safe cash management will provide far reaching benefits. They will end sleepless nights for retailers by ensuring their cash is safe. Another key benefit is real-time visibility that can be accessed from any connected network allowing managers to view a clear picture about the contents of their smart safes. Reports can be generated and filtered by cashier, transaction type, currency and more, ensuring preventive action can be enforced for any foreseeable risk.