Haguenau, France near the border of Germany has a rich and storied history. The owner of Intermarche – Haguenau has operated a supermarket on the same property for more than 30 years. When his store was destroyed, the owner decided to build a new and improved store on the property to continue serving his customers and the community. With the new store, he wanted to provide enhanced services and offerings in a modern store environment.
The Challenge
In planning a new store opening, the owner of Intermarche – Haguenau wanted to ensure staff would spend less time in the back office and more time in front of customers.
Before rebuilding a new store in the shadow of his previous one, the owner of Intermarche, Haguenau asked his cashier manager to do an analysis of time spent counting cash in the store’s back office. Marie Odile, the Head Cashier, found that she was spending two hours a day in cash management activities and her cashiers each spent half an hour per day. “We thought it was wise to think of a faster solution in order to spend more time with customers.” said Odile.
Nine years ago, the store implemented an earlier generation of Arca cash automation devices. Since then, they have updated their solution to include Arca’s CM18T and CC3R recyclers. Laure Adrien, the Cashier Manager described the manual back office processes before using cash recyclers, “We counted cash funds (by hand) every day. Cash funds were stored in a safe and collected every morning.” This meant that tills had to be counted out each morning and issued to cashiers then cashiers had to manually count and balance their tills at the end of a shift before the funds were returned to the safe.
The Solution
Automate cash handling so cashiers could use the time they saved in a much more valuable way; providing better service to their customers.
Odile described the process before cash automation, “We didn’t have any solution for cash funds management in the old store. Everything was done by hand, and I made the cash floats every morning.” Now the drawer float processes are much easier and faster for cashiers and management. When a cashiers arrive for a shift, they insert an empty till directly into the coin recycler, after logging into solution with their unique id, coins are dispensed directly into the till and they collect bills from the recycler to place in the till. “The Arca solution is compatible with our cash drawers, so there is no need to sort and the drawer can be put directly into the solution.“ she said.
And for end of day cash deposits, cashiers repeat the process by depositing their till funds into the recyclers where it is automatically sorted and counted by the devices which then issue a receipt for the deposit to cashiers to be reconciled with the POS system for accounting purposes.
“The Arca solution avoids all cash handling errors by filling a bag that is given directly to the transporter for the bank.”
Marie Odile,Head Cashier, Intermarché Haguenau
Besides automating float management, the store was able to automate bank deposit preparation. The CM18B cash recycler can transfer deposit funds directly into a deposit bag without ever touching the cash. The device seals the deposit bag inside the deposit safe for completely touchless deposit preparation. “The Arca solution avoids all cash handling errors by filling a bag that is given directly to the transporter for the bank.” said Odile. Being able to eliminate cash touches during deposit preparation ensures accuracy and adds an additional layer of security to back office processes.
The Results
With the cost savings from cash automation, the store was able to optimize their cash inventory and enhance their customer service by opening a service desk in the new store.
Thanks to the Arca solution, every phase of back office cash processing has been simplified. The solution is compatible with the store’s cash drawers, so cashiers simply insert their drawers into the coin recycler and coin float is dispensed directly into the drawer, sorted by denomination. “After their day, the cashier takes their cash drawer, pours coins in one recycler and banknotes in another, thereby recording their day.” said Marie Odile when describing the automated process for depositing a cash drawer. She also loves the efficiency of having one cashier withdrawing a start float while another deposits their till at the same time on one solution. With these streamlined processes, she estimates they save 25 minutes per day for each cashier.
In managing back office cash operations, Odile estimates she has gained two hours every day that she used to spend preparing start floats and counting and balancing till deposits at the end of the day. By automating cash counting, the solution has simplified her process of preparing bank deposits and made cash pickups more secure.
One unexpected benefit of the Arca solution has been the software tracking and reporting. Using cash and transaction data, the store has been able to streamline till management. ”With the Arca software we were able to optimize the number of coins and banknotes in the cash registers and save considerable time by avoiding the restocking (the tills) during the day.” explained Odile.
The cost savings from cash automation have allowed the store to reduce operating costs and redirect those savings to new customer service offerings including an after sales desk to the new store. So instead of reducing labor, the store has increased their level of customer service. “Considering the time and money saved, I would recommend this solution to other franchisees so they can spend more time with customers.” concludes Odile.