By Scott Slucher, contributing writer
This article appeared in the C-store Self-Service Executive Summary, Summer 2006.
Just when drivers thought it was safe to visit the gas pump with just a twenty in their pockets, fuel prices have begun going up as fast as the mercury.
According to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), there are 140,655 c-stores in the U.S., and 79 percent of them sell gas. And since 40 cents of every dollar spent in c-stores is cash, rising fuel costs translate directly to an increase in cash to manage.
In other words, it is time for prudent c-store owners and operators to take another look at their cash management systems.
All this money floating around worries Ed McGunn, president and chief executive officer of Corporate Safe Specialists (CSS), a supplier of safes and cash-control systems. He is concerned that the swelling volume of cash will overwhelm c-stores, exposing them to problems ranging from decreased productivity and customer service to an increased risk of shrinkage and robbery. Much of the burden of moving money from the drawer to the bank falls to the store manager.
"The No. 1 reason that drives customers to call us is that they have a problem, internally, managing cash — getting it from the customer to the register and into the safe," McGunn said.
CSS applies high-tech solutions to such problems, helping c-store owners gain control of their cash management, regardless of the volume.
"It's best applied when the safe is connected to the POS," McGunn said. "There is a circle of cash management from the register to the safe, and then the cycle is monitored."
Tom Murphy, a c-store manager in Louisville, Ky., is an 18-year veteran with Speedway SuperAmerica. He has worked with both manual systems and high-tech cash management systems like the ones developed by CSS.
"The big difference is that the old way was just a regular drop safe," Murphy said, "Managers had to pull the money, count the money, write up the deposit and take it to the bank, which could take anywhere from a half-hour to an hour or more, depending on the amount of the deposit."
The new closed-safe system has eliminated all of that, he said. Drops are made and automatically reported directly into the safe, at the point of sale. These days, Murphy's cash management duties consist of spending a few minutes each morning reading reports.
Even bank deposits have been eliminated, replaced by regular armored car pickups. "Everything that's run into the safe is automatically guaranteed," Murphy said.
He's been able to repurpose the time formerly spent on counting money to an even more important task: making it.
"It's given me back an hour a shift," time that can be spent focusing on his employees and customers, rather than huddled up in his office with the door closed, counting and banding and worrying over his employer's cash.
