Food Forum: Eliminating Inefficiency

Cost-effective technology can improve cash processing and mitigate risk. By John Bultema Managing currency can be the bane of a treasury’s existence. Processing cash is both time-consuming and fraught with fraud risks. While many companies are seeing their cash collection cycles increase, they are also faced with a lack of visibility into their total cash position that puts the organization at a disadvantage. And all too frequently, payment decisions are made without the necessary insights needed to optimize disbursement strategies with domestic and international suppliers. Perhaps most importantly, inefficiencies around cash processing often result in lost opportunities to put vital working capital to work. Fortunately, the latest cash processing solutions take an end-to-end approach to simplifying the receivables process. With the right solution in place, companies can achieve more efficient store management, while delivering provisional credit for deposits, improving cash flow and allowing treasury to access critical working capital more quickly. For many businesses, processing cash payments manually can prove risky. It is prone to processing errors, is labor intensive, costly in terms of time and productivity and ties-up vital funds awaiting deposit. Businesses requiring daily deposits of cash receipts may expose employees to an elevated level of risk from theft during trips to the bank. Manual cash handling in store locations also raises the risk of theft by employees, which negatively impacts critical margins. In addition, the time required to process cash and currency takes key personnel away from customer-facing duties, diminishing the customer experience. Treasury professionals can solve these cash collection issues by implementing one of today’s innovative currency processing solutions. Smart safe technology installed at store locations allows employees to simply feed currency into the device’s note reader throughout the day. The note reader verifies the currency and automatically tracks the deposit by employee and day totals. Such a currency processing solution virtually eliminates errors, as well as reduces the risk of theft. Because receipts are regularly collected from the device by an armored courier service, employee safety is also improved. By replacing manual processing of cash with an automated solution, personnel are freed from the labor-intensive deposit preparation, allowing them to focus on the critical task of delivering customer service. Fifth Third Bank’s currency processing solution can provide provisional credit for deposits within 24 hours of being fed into the device. Deposit information is automatically relayed to bank, where the organization’s account is then credited for deposit the next day. Cutting-edge currency processing, such as Fifth Third’s solution, can transform cash collection processing, enabling treasury to achieve significant operational efficiency. Smart safe technology can speed up handling of cash and currency, while automatically scanning for counterfeit bills and logging each entry. This solution can help to reduce cash losses, at the same time enhancing the safety of personnel by reducing the amount of cash handling. Overall, this solution increases employee productivity, enhances operational efficiency, lowers costs and improves margins. And perhaps most importantly, an effective currency processing solution can enable treasury to free up idle working capital, allowing the business to better meet its strategic goals. Rather than taking a piecemeal approach to currency management, treasury professionals should look to improve cash handling using an end-to-end methodology. By coordinating all components of cash handling, treasury can take advantage of a currency processing solution that simplifies the receivables process. As the cost of manual processing continues to rise, proven, cost-effective technology solutions are becoming far more attractive. Finding the right solution starts with selecting a banking partner that truly understands your business. The provider you choose should offer solutions that are highly flexible, enabling you to meet your unique business objectives. With the right solution in place, treasury can dramatically improve cash and currency processing, enhancing cash flow and helping to liberate trapped working capital that can now be used to support critical business objectives. John Bultema is executive vice president and director of treasury management and currency processing for Fifth Third Bank. He can be reached at [email protected].