PCMS

The importance of monitoring the tender mix is often overlooked in store but can be a key source of unidentified loss - especially as more and more retailers move to offsite third party cash and cash equivalent reconciliation.

Tender abuse can involve the misuse of coupons and vouchers where a cashier will use a single coupon or voucher several times to reduce the actual amount paid by the customer, another example of Sweethearting. In some cases, where vouchers do not even require scanning, a cashier can manually enter vouchers as tender even if they do not exist at all.

Transactions with a high volume of vouchers as tender or high voucher tender value to transaction total are an indicator of risk in this area.

Coupon stuffing, where the cashier enters coupons as tender instead of cash and later removes the cash is another method of tender abuse. Another variation of this is simply by the cashier obtaining coupons from magazines or other promotional material and removing cash from the till to the value of those coupons.

The detailed reconciliation and monitoring of all tender types is essential to avoid potential abuse and loss at the till. Where it does not exist, loss is guaranteed to occur.