Cash Management in South East Asia

Making the Business Flourish with CashGuard

Far East Orchid is not only the largest importer of fresh cut flowers, they are also the largest wholesaler and retailer of fresh flowers in Singapore. They were introduced to the concept of cash management and StrongPoint by SPRING Singapore – a government agency working with local businesses to increase productivity.

Here, Assistant Manager Agnes Chioh, reflects over the experiences she and her team have had with CashGuard, StrongPoint’s cash management solution, since the first installation in 2015.

CashGuard Cash Management

Cash handling is often an overlooked part of the retail operation that can have an enormous impact on the entire business. As a retailer you and your staff spend hours every day counting and guarding cash, but theft and shrinkage still appear. With CashGuard you can spend that time on more productive tasks while ensuring theft and shrinkage is next to nothing.

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Focus on the Customers Instead of the Cash

Before using CashGuard, Far East Orchid had open cash drawers. That meant that all cash had to be counted manually several times per day. This was quite time consuming.

“We don’t have to do that anymore. We just have to make a collection and go to the back office. The system counts the money. This saves us about 45 minutes to one hour per day.”
Agnes also describes how manual cash handling took time away from talking to and serving the customers.

“In our business, customers expect a lot of advice and assistance in the purchasing process. Having to handle cash meant we had to move the attention away from the customers. With CashGuard, we have a new avenue of serving our customers better. It provides us with more efficiency of both employees and time. I expect that it saves us about 20 hours per week.”
Agnes Chioh, Assistant Manager at Far East Orchid

High-Tech Attraction

Agnes has noticed that the CashGuard systems attract a lot of positive attention from the customers. This creates a lot of opportunities for conversations between the staff and the customers. That in turn, leaves a positive and long lasting impression of Far East Orchid on the customers.

“They seem to view the systems as something quite high-tech. It is something new and exciting for them.”

Time Well Spent in the Back

Since Far East Orchid is a wholesaler, it often handles deliveries in the back. Before installing the CashGuard system, a staff needed to standby to collect payment received by drivers.

“Now, the CashGuard system makes sure the cash is always sealed. And nobody has to be on stand-by. They can do other, more productive things instead.”

Better Security, Better Control

The solution fully automates the cash handling process and produces a variety of reports that give Agnes and the other managers better control and overview of the cash in the store.

“We needed to change to small notes several times per day before. Now, we only have to get them twice or three times per week.”
Agnes Chioh, Assistant Manager at Far East Orchid

Future Opportunities with CashGuard

With the CashGuard solution, Agnes sees even more opportunities in the future to further enhance the business operations.

“We are moving in the direction where we would like to include self-checkouts in our business. I can see opportunities for that with our CashGuard systems.”

Self-Checkout

There is a clear trend toward more checkout options and flexibility in retail today. Retailers look for combinations of regular tills, self-scanning systems and self-checkout to better fit their individual store layouts and concepts. At the same time, there is a growing demand for self-service options among shoppers. With StrongPoint’s self-checkout solution you get a fast, highly user-friendly solution with AI item recognition. That means less queues, faster checkout and happier customers.

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