Should You Make Your Facility Cashless – Part 4

Part 4 - Minimizing Employee Theft Opportunities

The FBI has called employee theft “the fastest growing crime in America!” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than 30% of business failures are caused by or related to employee theft. The Chamber also estimates that 75% of employees steal from the workplace, and the majority will repeat the theft. The American Society of Employers estimates that 20% of every dollar earned by a U.S. company is lost to theft. And in 2007 over $50 billion was lost by U.S. companies to employee theft, with the majority of these losses coming from cash handling companies in retail, hospitality and entertainment. What are you doing to protect yourself?

The first line of defense is a good Point of Sale system. Gone are the days that a simple cash register can ensure your security and accountability for monies entering your facility. Now it is imperative to have a sophisticated computer system monitoring your employees’ performance and reporting discrepancies as they occur.

Since you are reading this blog, I assume you already use a strong Point of Sale system (hopefully Pathfinder Advantage), or you are considering getting a system (hopefully Pathfinder Advantage). However have you considered removing or limiting the opportunity to handle money from your employees? By removing the ability to handle money, you are in effect removing their ability to take your money as well.

With a Cashless System, customers are given a card or some form of media in exchange for currency. This exchange can take place at a Point of Sale station, where one employee would still have access to cash, or at a self-serving kiosk, where the money leaves the hands of the customer, enters a machine where it is calculated, and then a card is dispensed for the customer’s use. The Cashless Card can then be used to purchase food and beverages, admission tickets, arcade game plays, retail, or anything else your facility sells.

Unlike a typical transaction where an employee can use schemes such as short-changing the customer, memorization of prices, and sharing with friends; a cashless system transaction is an exchange of currency, not assets. Therefore the system not only expects a specific amount of currency, but also requires it in order to finalize the transaction. It is then the card, not cash, which the employees will handle in order to finalize further transactions.

One of the hardest things for an owner or manager to keep track of is their arcade or batting cage tokens. Because of the constant in and out flow of the tokens, standard inventory control measures for preventing employee theft are nearly impossible to implement. The use of Cashless Cards to operate your arcade games and attractions eliminates the oppurtunity for an employee to steal or giveaway play tokens. The Point of Sale system simply won't allow the employee to issue a card with value without also expecting the money at the end of the shift.

Generate Revenue With Online Ticket Sales

With the advent of the World Wide Web, internet sales have been a great way to help a business improve their revenue by generating additional sales. Recently, online ticket sales have become more and more prevalent. In order to help our clients improve their business, we've implemented the Advantage Web online system.

Advantage Web allows you to sell tickets to your customers quickly and easily. It supports both regular and will call ticketing, and uses barcodes to control access. The barcodes can be validated at any Point of Sale station, or using turnstiles. Even better, we collect customer information for each transaction, helping you to build your customer database for marketing.

For our clients who operate movie theatres, laser tag, or other
capacity managed venues we can also sell capacity managed tickets. The web server and your local server remain in constant communication to prevent overselling tickets, and allow you to continue to sell tickets online right up until the time of the show or event

The biggest advantage of using Advantage Web is the seamlessness of the integration to your existing software. You manage the system directly from Manager Console, just by enabling specific ticket items for sale on the web. You can also provide pictures, descriptions, alternate pricing, convenience fees, and many other options. After a sale is completed, all of the sales data is immediately transmitted back to your local system, and appears alongside all of your other sales data.

Also, setup is quick and painless. We will host the service on our servers so you don't need to worry about internet connection stability, security, or any of the other issues related to operating a web store. You just have to add a link from your web site to the store. We can even work with your to make your online store look as much like your website as possible.

Also, later this summer we'll be adding web-based party booking to the system. Once that system is complete, you'll be able to use the same web system for both ticket sales and party bookings, with the same seamless integration to your existing software.

So if you're interested in quickly and easily adding online ticket sales to the services that you offer your customers, just give us a call at (336) 598-5934 or e-mail us at info@pfasoft.com for pricing. Don't miss out on this great opportunity to increase your business and join the information era!