What if your cash register was losing you $1000s a year?
One of the most widely used cash control systems used in your business is your cash register. Depending on the specification of your particular system, it will be used to account for all cash takings for your business, keep a record of all users, record transactions which were later refunded, store details of your purchases and may even allow you to reconcile your stock on hand to perform a stocktake. But by far the most common use is simply as an advanced cash drawer, where a report at the end of the night lists all calculated takings by department and payment method and this is then used to balance with your actual takings. But however advanced your system may be when it comes to technology, thousands of euros are lost each year to businesses who have not considered the importance or the implications of the correct layout of buttons and functions on their cash register. Your cash register should serve as a line of defence in the overall stock control in your business and not as a leaking bucket. By ensuring your system is laid out correctly, you can prevent unidentified theft, use printed reports to understand your business better and create a system of controls and checks that allow you identify fraud or irregularities as they occur. Here how: Every product needs its own button In order to identify which products are missing after a stocktake, then you will need to know which products have been sold. If you are selling all bottled beers under one "Bottled Beer" button just because they are all the same price, then the best result you will get from a stocktake is to know how all bottled beers as a group are performing. This result may be acceptable when all figures balance at the end of the month, but if a particular stocktake reveals that 74 bottled beers are missing, you will want to know which particular beer this is in order to track back through invoices, transfers, promotions, sales, staff drinks as well as to be able to keep an eye on that particular beer going forward. It may be a combination of a number of brands, but unless you assign a button to each product individually, you may never know. Another reason for assigning individual buttons is that historical data from past periods allows you to predict stock requirements for similar periods in the future. By knowing how many bottles of Tiger Beer have sold in June, you will know approximately how many you may sell in July. This is also extremely useful information to have to hand when dealing with suppliers. By knowing your consumption by product, you will be able to negotiate from a stronger position when it comes to pricing and deciding whether you actually need that "very attractive" bulk purchase deal…. Get rid of the "Open Food" and "Open Drink" buttons The fact that you have read this far means you are serious about controlling your costs. The "Open" buttons on the till are the equivalent of leaving the cash drawer open within reach of your customers. Someone will be delighted but it will rarely be you. The "Open" buttons are, in my opinion, the biggest accomplice in fraudulent transactions that occur on the cash register. Picture this; the bartender's friends come in for a round of drinks which are duly served, but instead of hitting the product buttons for each drink, he simply enters a lower amount into the "Open Drink" button and gives the change. To the innocent observer, a perfectly normal transaction has taken place and as a business owner you have little way of catching this trick unless you witness it while in the bar. The same applies to food. The waiting staff could be charging their own prices for every dish on the menu without it coming to your attention. The first time you get suspicious is during a quarterly management accounts meeting when you learn how low your profits have been. I have come across instances where drinks were being dispensed and then charged under the "Open Food" button because it was closer to the cash button and therefore quicker for the lazy dishonest bartender. After recommending these buttons be removed in one establishment, two bartenders quit that same week. Coincidence? Similar to the reasons above, by not accounting for all products individually, you will not accumulate any historical data for future budgeting. So call your till company today and have these buttons removed. The results may surprise you. Remove Management Functions and Keys I have lost track of how many bars I have come across where Management Functions on the cash registers are accessible by ordinary staff members. Features such as the ability to Void Transactions, Reverse Entries, Report Cash in Drawer amounts, even change prices and product descriptions. Management should be the only users with access to the above functions. If you are serious about controlling your costs, then have the above features inaccessible to regular staff. Your till company can easily implement buttons that require a management password or key to activate them. The idea of implementing a control system in your business is to remove all variables so that when it comes to looking for answers to poor results, you now exactly where problems occurred and can remedy them immediately. I have come across staff who wanted their fraudulent actions hidden and so cleared down the memory of each till after taking "their" portion of the takings. Such actions take a lot of investigation to prove, if they are ever noticed at all, so give yourself one less worry and restrict access to these functions to those who need access only.
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Opening a Bar
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