Cashless Catering

Throughput at the cashless till point is three times quicker than cash. A good cashier will serve approximately 8-10 persons per minute thereby removing any queues at peak periods. Customers are able to enjoy a hot meal, whilst cashless caterers benefit from a possible reduction in the number of till stations and cashiers required.

Typically each cashier will spend 15 minutes per shift to 'cash up', count the float and collate the sales reports. Reports often show an 'overs or shorts' i.e. the cash does not match the sales in the cashbox. With a cashless system, as no cash is exchanged at the till this problem is removed. Cashing up time is reduced to just seconds with the data downloaded via the network to the Central Management Unit. With no cash to reconcile the cashier can simply turn the cashless unit off and move to other jobs in the operation.

During less busy periods cashiers are able to switch cashless tills to 'standby' mode and apply their efforts to other tasks. This is due to the fact that there is no requirement to 'wash-up' as no cash has been handled.

Typically cash tills hold a float valued at around £50-£60. This money has to be counted before and after each shift and locked away each evening. It may represent a small outgoing of cash but there is time and inconvenience associated with the handling of this money on a daily basis.

Dependent upon the size of catering environment, this process may represent a large amount of cash to bank on a daily basis. Industry sources allow a cost of around 2% of turnover in cash handling; therefore the weekly cost may total a considerable sum per annum. Implementing a cashless solution may not remove cash from site entirely (dependent upon requirements); however in most cases smaller denominations (i.e. 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p) are removed with most staff members loading, on average once a week using notes. Cash collected will reduce significantly as will the weekly cash collection charges. Implementing a totally cashless solution will remove these costs entirely.

Staff restaurants are able to save considerable time each week currently dedicated to the administration and management of cash. This can be reduced by over 50% due to the higher denomination of coins and notes loaded, or entirely in a totally cashless environment.

By implementing a cashless system, many smaller catering operations benefit. As there is no dirty cash to handle, one individual is able to operate the till and serve the food at the same time.

By implementing a cashless system it becomes possible to introduce a multi tariff pricing system. Contractors and visitors can be made to pay a commercial rate for the services offered and thus keep the food subsidy to internal staff only. Visitors can purchase a 'guest cashless card' from an automatic machine by paying a deposit and loading value to the card in the same way as staff. These cashless cards are encoded with a different code so that the cashless payment system can identify sales to this group on a daily basis. The cashier does not have to know whom they are serving, as the epos unit will recognise the group code number and charge a higher price.

When the visitor is ready to leave, they can either keep the cashless card for return visits, or return the card back to the machine and receive any residual value plus their deposit back. The cashless card is then kept in the unit for the next guest.

A cashless card could identify those individuals that are under age who may try and purchase alcohol through a bar. The cashless card can be encoded and therefore prohibit underage drinkers.

Paying with a cashless card rather than cash encourages people to spend more. On average cashless clients report an increase in sales through their staff restaurants of between 5-10%. This is generally because of the improved service over cash. In most cases cashless customers do not spend more on main meals, but rather they spend more on items such as fruit, confectionary and other products to take away.

Once a member of staff has loaded cash to their cashless card they are only able to spend it through on-site outlets. Many organisations have reported an increase in staff 'eating in' rather than using outside commercial outlets.

By implementing a cashless payment point of sale unit (EPOS) rather than cash-till enables comprehensive sales reporting. With the capability to record, not only by individual products sold, the cashless payment EPOS system also has the ability to record sales to individual cardholders, departments or groups and it can control any free issue such as hospitality. The reports can be downloaded each day to a Central Management Unit that will reconcile each cashless transaction and produce a full and detailed report that can be analysed on a periodic basis. Should any of the figures require confirmation or justification then the system has full back up to confirm validity. The cashless payment system produces the reports automatically and therefore saves considerable management time in paperwork and manual entering of sales data.

Controlling hospitality spend and departmental invoicing by the caterer can be improved significantly by using a cashless smart card. The card is identifiable to a department and individual, and after the meal service the cashless payment EPOS unit can produce detailed reports on any hospitality sales. This can then be sent to the department for checking and payment. Some organisations issue department head cards that have no cash on but are only used for guest entertaining.