Do shrinking gasoline profit margins, increasing credit card fees, and bad checks have you looking for new areas to make a profit? Take a look at your current ATM program. If you don’t own your ATMs you are potentially missing out on a very profitable revenue stream. Do you own your ATMs but the cost of maintenance is eating up all of your profits? Find out how owner repaired ATMs may be the answer for your business.

Now is the time to:

• Check into ATMs that are easily repaired with no need to pay a service technician.
• Learn about loading cash daily
• Use your ATM as an unmanned cash register and increase your available cash.

ATM ownership is not rocket science and is not as demanding as you might believe. When considered as a revenue stream for your business and not just a customer convenience ATM profits become an important part of your financial statement.

Free machine (ATM placement program) vs. ATM ownership

When you have free ATMs in your business you may be thinking that you have the best of both worlds. You have no upfront cost for the ATM equipment, your employees have no contact with the ATM equipment other than to make a phone call when it is down and you are not responsible for the vault cash in the ATM. You may receive a small portion of surcharge AND you have been sold on the benefit to you as a customer that a large percentage of the money withdrawn from the ATM will be spent in your store. The bottom line is that if you are considering your current ATM program as just a customer convenience someone other than you is profiting. You are literally giving away money for a service you are providing!!! The following information will help you understand how ATM operations can work to your advantage and be used to increase your bottom line.

Vault cash requirements

ATM usage is static. By analyzing your past ATM transaction activity you can determine the amount of vault cash that is required on a daily, weekly or monthly basis with a degree of accuracy. Why? ATM usage does not typically fluctuate unless you are in an area where there are large increases in customer traffic seasonally. Neighborhood ATM transaction volume will be known within 3-5 days of placement and rarely if ever (even with all the signage in the world) increases to a great degree, it can decrease however if the ATM is viewed by the customer as an unreliable source funds.

Estimating cash needed for ATM transactions is no different than determining cash requirements for your registers. Of course you anticipate needing more cash on certain days of the week or during certain times of the year. You always want to make sure you have plenty of cash on hand over holiday weekends. The ATM is really NO different than your cash register. It is very easy to balance and load your ATM daily, easier than a cash register when you are only dealing with a single denomination.

Once you have determined the required vault cash for a particular location you will only have to adjust for the reasons listed above. Since your vault cash is re-deposited daily there is no need for you to have to load $10,000 – $20,000 into the ATM at a time. It can easily become a part of your employee’s daily routine just like the cash register.

Loading Vault Cash

Now that you have determined the amount of money your ATM needs to operate on you can decide how often you want to load it.

Daily Loading

• Uses the ATM as unmanned cash register – add cash and balance daily
• Does not effect cash flow – money is recycled daily
• Decreases temptation – If you are also removing your cash nightly you are removing the motivation for thieves to break into your business and steal your ATM believing it is loaded with the typical $10,000- $25,000.
• One of the most expensive parts of the ATM is the dispenser – especially if it is designed to hold over a 1000 notes – ATMs with smaller dispensers cost less saving you money on initial equipment investment

Weekly Loading

• Requires more cash to load and be left in the machine overnight
• Cash flow is diminished slightly
• Increased temptation for would be thieves
• Depending on transaction volume may require larger more expensive equipment

Bi-weekly or Monthly Loading

• Requires significant amounts of cash to be left in the machine overnight
• Large amounts of cash are needed depending on location volume
• Significant temptation for would be thieves
• Depending on transaction volume may require larger more expensive equipment

Locations with less transaction activity can get by with weekly or bi-weekly cash loads and money can still be removed nightly. Locations with more transaction activity benefit notably from daily loading since the cash is recycled daily the ATM can be stocked with considerably less cash on a daily basis.

The Employee Factor

It can be argued that giving the employees access to the large amounts of cash sometimes needed for loading provides too much temptation and increases employee theft. That argument does not hold true with today’s technology however. Most large chains, some smaller chains and single stores now have technology on their side via the Internet. ATM monitoring and reporting can be done daily from a central location and requires very little time with proper training. Requiring staff to report ATM activity and balances as part of their daily routine makes it very difficult for them to remove significant amounts of cash from the cash loads without detection.

Store management is the best choice for ATM responsibility and even with their already demanding routine have no problem including the 5-10 minutes required for stocking and balancing the ATM. Store managers can appoint key personnel to handle the task in their absence just as they would any other function such as preparing daily deposits and ordering stock.