Taking the cash risk out of C-stores.

As an Exxon distributor with nine Tiger Mart C-Stores, Mark Baker is always looking for ways to reduce cash losses while he increases his profits. The security and cash control problems Mark confronts are shared by owner-operators throughout the convenience store industry. Here, in his own words, are the issues and thinking behind Mark Baker’s decision to implement a single source transaction-to-bank cash control solution for Tiger Mart.

About Tiger Mart.

Mark Baker: "We are an Exxon distributor with nine convenience stores that we own and operate ourselves. The stores vary in size from 1,500 to 3,000 square feet. We only have two stores that have extensive food operations. They both have delis. The rest of the stores are just convenience stores offering your basic sodas, cigarettes, snack goods, and small grocery items. We have anywhere from four to twelve employees per site."

"We were using a tube based safe to manage our change requirements. The safes also served as the depositories for our cash. Our cashiers performed envelope drops through our cash register system. Then that money was, the old-fashioned way, emptied by the manager, counted in the back room the next day, made into a deposit and then taken to the bank."

Problems with previous equipment.

What issues did you have with that system?

Mark Baker: "That system created lots of problems that I'm sure everybody in the industry has. We had discrepancies between what was supposed to be in the drop and what actually was in the drop. We had problems with the dispensing of the change, with incorrect amounts of payments being done into our register. Tubes would come up missing that had $1's, $5's or $10's in them. That money would be a shortage. Or, because of discrepancies that the employees had, managers' change safes would also end up being short or over from what they were supposed to be. Then we had the fact that our managers were handling an awful lot of cash and having to take it to the bank. That was something that we've never been comfortable with."

Finger pointing and stress.

Did the discrepancies cause a lot of finger-pointing back and forth between managers and cashiers?

Mark Baker: "I don't want to overstate it, but there were some examples of where finger-pointing happened. Most of the time, we took the hard line that it was the cashiers' responsibility and that they were wrong, but you could never be 100% sure. That's not to say that either our employees or our managers had intent. It could have been an honest mistake on somebody's part. Yet either way, it left us in a bad situation. If a drop came up missing, where did that go? Did the cashier not put it in? Did the manager take it? Did one of them really, honestly lose it? You know, either way we're out the money."

Preventing cash shortages.

In lost cash, what were shortages costing you per unit on an annual basis?

Mark Baker: "Let's just say that as we've been getting busier and as the price of gas has been going up, our cash shortages have been getting worse over the last year or two. It was a trend that we really didn't have any sure way we could stop. No good remedy other than trying to deal with it or eliminating the employees that were a problem. Of course, then you have to hire new employees and you don't know where you're going with them. I don't have a 100% number I can put on our losses, but I can say it was a problem that was continuing to grow and we didn't have any great solutions to stop it."

Lost time. Lost profit.

How much of your manager's time was tied up in the back room doing the reconciliation and correcting discrepancies?

Mark Baker: "With spending the time getting into the safe every morning, then counting the money in the back room, then driving the deposit to the bank, I estimated that we were probably losing close to a day a week of their time. Anywhere between three quarters and a full day a week of their time, on a five-day week, was spent dealing with cash problems and just taking care of the financial things they had to do."

Deciding on CashLINK™.

What features of the AT Systems CashLINK were deciding factors for you?

Mark Baker: "Well, the biggest feature for us was the security. When that money goes into the safe, it's as good as going into the bank. If there is a discrepancy or we reconcile our paperwork at the end of the day, it's very easy to pinpoint exactly who is responsible for it. The cash is only handled one time and that's by the cashier when they put it into the safe. The manager is totally removed from the process. For our managers, it's no more than writing down the number like they get for the credit cards every day. That is just a wonderful feature. It gives us peace of mind knowing that when we get the report we know the cash is in there. When we do our reconciliation back at the office, we're completely satisfied with the fact that the money is there and we count it like it's in our bank. With armored service we know our cash is going to get to the bank. The biggest benefit to us is getting out of the cash-handling business. It's not something we've ever been great at, and we're more than happy to give it up."

Easy training.

How difficult was it to train your employees to use CashLINK?

Mark Baker: "The training our cashiers needed was very minimal. They have very few things that they need to know how to do to deposit their money into the safe. The bill readers do it all. Basically, all cashiers have to do is tell the equipment who they are and then feed their bills in. They also learn how to print their report at the end of their shift showing them how much they've put in. That is essentially all cashiers need to know. The training for those tasks has been very simple. I don't think our cashiers have had any problems learning the system."

"The managers' training is just a little bit more complicated, but there's not very much that they need to know how to do either. Their training has been pretty simple and quick. Once we've gotten everybody trained in a day or two at each store, we've had very few, if any, further questions or problems. I think our employees have found the system easy to use and I think they really like it. I know our managers like it. It works for them."

Saving time. Making money.

What impact does CashLINK have on your business?

Mark Baker: "I do think we're saving, if not a full day, close to a day a week of each manager's time. And that is so valuable. It does allow managers to spend more time out of the office and in the store. Managers are our highest paid employees in the store. Before CashLINK they were just sitting back in their office counting money. Paying them to do that is not a good use of our funds."

"I also think the CashLINK system gives our managers a much better relationship with their employees. It allows for more complete training of employees in our stores. It'll gives managers more time to actually be out in the store and interact with customers, and merchandise the store. They don't have to run out in the middle of counting a deposit to go solve a question or problem. They'll already be out there on the selling floor."

"CashLINK reduces problems between managers and employees regarding cash shortages because the cashiers absolutely know now that they're the ones that are responsible for that money. There's no other person to blame if they do come up short. These are the kind of additional benefits we see with CashLINK. I think that the security aspects of the system are just so important to us that the time saving for our managers is just the icing on the cake."

Keeping change finds in balance.

How has CashLINK affected your issues with your store's change funds?

Mark Baker: "As I've said, we used to let the employees dispense the change, then do a paid in to the register. They'd tell the register how much money they'd just put into it. That process left a lot of opportunity for theft or errors. With our new AT Systems equipment, cashiers have to buy all their change. They feed the bill into the bill validator, and they can only get out of that safe what they put into it. That just eliminates any possible problem with the change fund, unless of course there's a problem with the manager. There's no way for any of the cashiers in the store to cause that change fund to be out of balance. They have to balance because they can only buy what they put into it. Now, there's no way for them to short two tubes of $1's on a Sunday night and not show up on Monday. So that's, that's been great."

"Plus, the AT Systems equipment holds so much more than our old safes did. Even on busy weekends as we come into summer, we're can load the safe on the Friday and have more than enough change to last us through the weekend. The managers can print a change fund report every morning that tells them exactly what's left in all of the individual bins and what's been fed into the bill reader. And they get their report right there. So they know whether or not they have to open the safe that day to add any change to it or not. It's very simple as opposed to taking tubes back into the office everyday and sorting them out and filling them and everything else."