ARTICLE
The amount of money your organization generates is equally important as the method by which you collect and track those funds. Cash collections still remain a dominant method by many businesses in emerging markets to generate revenue. However, manual cash management – cash collections, cash pick ups, cash deliveries, and cash deliveries in transit – is an extremely inefficient process: cash leakage at point of collection due to fraud, human error; discrepancies between cash stored on premise and cash deposited at a bank; and having no concise method of tracking data available on cash collections or cash delivery in transit. Even though businesses that primarily collect cash at point of sale as their main source of revenue, the delayed accessibility to cash collected means that working capital remains under-utilized.
Considering how far digital infrastructure has come and the rate at which it is being adopted by individuals and businesses, businesses in emerging markets that generate revenue by cash collections should seriously consider a digital on-ramp for cash solution.
In many organizations in emerging countries that primarily collect cash as their main source of revenue, cash management is a great obstacle. On premise collections by various cash delivery and cash pickup agents is a highly unorganized process prone to fraud and human error. Cash pickup agents have to travel to points of sale and collect cash, bring it back on premise and record the amount of cash collected. This way of manually collecting cash from warehouse-to-premise, counting, and recording the amount of collections is extremely inefficient and risky. Cash pickup and cash delivery agents might make accounting errors or may engage in fraudulent activities (ie, tampering the amount of cash collected from a shop or warehouse and stealing a cut from your collections). The same risk factors present themselves when your cash collections have to move from-premise-to-bank, requiring the assistance of cash delivery services. Even though you have collected cash on premise, it does not become digitally accessible and trackable up until it is deposited in a bank account.
Current practice of cash management makes reconciling cash collections extremely cumbersome. Delayed reconciliation causes financial discrepancies that remain difficult to track for the entire shop-to-onsite, onsite-to bank collections lifecycle. Businesses that rely on manual cash management process – cash collection, cash pickup, cash delivery, cash delivery in transit – do not have access to real time cash analytics and therefore cannot make timely investment or operations decisions.
This is where Loop steps in. By creating a novel hardware – Loop machine – and software – Loop App – solution for collections and cash in transit to optimize manual cash based financial operations, Loop helps businesses eliminate inefficiencies in manual financial operations that result in significant working capital savings every month by over 60%.
Businesses that primarily generate revenue through cash collections can work with Loop to revolutionize their operating model. By working with Loop, organizations get to use Loop Machines – smart cash deposit machines – which are configurable and can be installed on any premise of your choice – to instantly deposit their cash collections safely around the clock.
Loop machines are smart cash deposit machines that store the physical assets – cash – and are interlinked with the Loop App, a cash management software which provides real time visibility into the corresponding cash data. This means that permissioned business stakeholders get to have a bird’s eye view of cash collections in realtime and gain insight into spend, cash, and financial resources institution-wide. Moreover, once the cash is deposited into the smart cash deposit machines, the corresponding collections data is sent to partner banks which converts your physical cash into remote cash and makes it accessible instantly, making access to finances significantly faster.
No longer does cash collection have to be a grave security risk for organizations that primarily generate revenue through cash collections.. Cash leakages are often recorded as a bad debt expense for businesses that have manual cash management operations, but with smart cash deposit machines installed on site, this expense can be realized as hidden working capital. Moreover, holding money bags of cash on premise is a cash leakage risk that can also impact the morale of your management team. When cash goes missing, the mandatory cross-questioning and raising eyebrows at fellow employees can disrupt the trust and effectiveness needed to run smooth operations that require team effort.
Furthermore, businesses that need to deliver their cash collections to their bank account multiple times in a month find it difficult and time consuming to find regulated cash in transit services in emerging markets. Safety and security concerns can delay the time it takes to conduct due diligence on each cash in transit company, and hire a cash in transit service that offer money transport. Overall, this delays the time your cash collections reach the bank. This makes tracking data on collections and cash delivery in transit a difficult process to manage with each cash collections-to-bank-settlement lifecycle.
By working with Loop, businesses can use the feature ‘cash delivery service near me’, view a list of regulated money transportation services in their vacinity, and book cash in transit vehicle services right from the Loop App. Moreover, the digital platform provides access to real time visibility of all cash-in-transit jobs and can businesses can even track their cash delivery in transit in real time via google maps. Fast growing businesses can handle increased cash in transit (CIT) demand and receive, and review CIT requests from hundreds of users in real time.
Moreover, permissioned stakeholders can review requests, update pickup and drop-off timings on terms convenient for both the stakeholder and the cash in transit company personnel. Loop allows cash-oriented organizations to track cash deliveries in transit, manage differences and upload deposit slips. Businesses can conveniently view the entire history of completed orders.
Through the Loop App, businesses that primarily generate revenue through cash collections will be able to reconcile transactions in minutes. Our software allows cash-oriented organizations to batch upload reconciliation data from the softwares already in use and provides tools and analytics to track and manage reconciliation activities, discover errors and duplicates before sending out the wrong invoices to customers, and also handles local and global invoicing requirements granting access to send and receive funds from an expanded list of partner banks. With automated reconciliation, supplier and vendor payments can become a seamless process to manage.
Loop offers a FinOps OS solution for cash-oriented organizations to optimize their cash management process – cash collection, cash pickup, cash delivery, and cash delivery in transit – and automate it for fast and secure access to cash. Fast growing businesses can safely store their collections in smart cash deposit machines and discover new working capital with every shop-to-on-premise, on-premise-to-bank lifecycle. Having instant access to collections and real-time visibility of cash analytics – such as cash deliveries in transit – can enable businesses to make timely data-driven decisions and leverage their working capital to make optimal decisions for growth.