Retail Cash Processing
Once upon a time in 1979 (before there were labor laws and I was only 10) I worked in a cash room for Kmart in Stow, Ohio. I was tucked away behind the scenes counting money. That lasted about a year. Answered an ad to be a secretary for a distributor of Brandt coin and currency counters that I used at Kmart. The rest is history.
My job preparing retail cash deposits went something like this.
Day 1: Verify the daily cashier receipts by using a variety of Brandt equipment being ever so careful as the currency counter only counted pieces of paper. I will concede that the counter was a lot faster than counting by hand but imagine the responsibility of writing down the right denomination of currency in the right place on the right piece of paper. Oh, the struggle of recounting the money and strapping each denomination properly; someone knocking on the door of the cash room – making me lose my count – hand me some twenties to exchange for ones and fives. Balance the dumb safe, write everything in the balance sheets to match sales records to receipts. Write a change order for the bank to deliver change for the cashiers; because, with rare exceptions, no one wants to dig for change. Call the bank with the change order. Send results to the accounting office to balance the cash register.
Day 2: Walk discreetly through the store to deliver a canvas bag to a guy with a big armored truck outside. Go quietly back to the cash room and start counting the cashier receipts all over again.
Day 3 or 4: The bank verifies the deposit and overnight credits the account. The guy in the big truck returns with the receipts from the bank. Darn it! The deposit from two days ago is $5 off. Go through the receipts and make sure it was not my mistake. Show the store manager the receipts to make sure that she knows it was not my mistake.
Day 5: The bank issues a reversal of $5.00.
NO ONE NEEDS TO IMAGINE THE NUMBER OF TIMES THE FUNDS WERE COUNTED AND RECOUNTED, THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS, AND THE LACK OF VISIBILITY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN TO FOLLOW CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY.
Sound familiar to anyone?
Fast forward to 2020 and Morphis.
Day 1: Cashiers walk up to smart safe, feed their individual cashier drawer funds into this device that magically counts and bags the funds. Morphis Smart Safe Manager records those deposits, displays on dashboard, and provides secure user log-in to view. Morphis sends results to the bank to credit the account and sends the results to POS to reconcile the cashiers. Morphis forecasts when the guy in the big armored truck is supposed to pick up the funds. Days later the already provisionally credited funds are picked up and verified by the CIT on behalf of the bank.
