Businesses, especially small businesses, are prone to having money disappear. Whether from your employees using fraudulent activities, robbery or simply mistakes being made, there are always more methods which can be employed to keep money secure in a business environment.
One of the key things to remember about keeping business money secure is that if you deter criminals from attempting to steal from you, they mostly won't think it's worth the time. The higher your security levels, the less likely you are to have robbery attempts - thieves look for opportunity, not obstacles. Glass screens and clear signs which indicate that there are no funds kept on the premises will deter most criminals, so that should always be your first port of call.
There are some very simple ways to keep money secure:
- Limit the visibility of the cash on the premises as much as possible (never count large amounts of money in front of customers or even employees unless necessary).
- Transfer as much money as you can into a bank account rather than have it kept on your business premises.
- Install a safe and limit access to it. Time lock, drop-in safes are the safest and most secure for retail operations. Have a separate small safe for till funding and change needs.
- Keep access to tills limited. There are various methods of protection which cover tills, but the basics are to keep tills away from the front of the store, and make sure that your employees are the only ones who can access the money - use a protective (preferably bulletproof) glass screen and lockable doors to ensure that nobody gains unauthorised access to the tills.
- CCTV is extremely important - a deterrent which most criminals will not want to risk.
The security of cash in transit is another area which needs attention:
- It is always best to keep the amount of cash being transported as small as possible; make regular trips to the bank rather than saving up the money all at once, so that you limit any risk associated with the transport process.
- The correct training for your staff is important:
- They should know the correct procedures to follow if they are suspicious of any cars or people following them
- They should never be transporting large amounts of cash alone.
- Stress their safety over the importance of the money: it's better for a business to lose a small amount of money if attacked than lose an employee for attempting to subdue an attack.
- Vary the routes which are taken to get to the bank, and the doors of the car should be well locked as well as being maintained to a very high standard.
The most important thing to remember when trying to keep business money secure is simply to use common sense. If it seems like you are building up a large amount of cash on your premises, so much that you would be greatly affected if it were to be stolen, then you are not taking regular enough trips to the bank. If you feel like it would be easy to steal from your business, then you have to take further steps to secure the administrative and cash handling processes and the premises.
