Question to night closing supervisors :
How do you handle your final counting and bagging? For ages we did the usual spot-check, take the stack of money and seal it in the appropriate register bag, then accompany those bags to the service desk to be locked in the draw.
When our pod-shoot suction system thing failed a few weeks ago, I noticed that what the office SSAs were doing while performing manual pickups, was ensuring that the money was accompanied by at least 3 staff members while it crossed the floor. The need for the added security is obvious, but what seemed ridiculous to me was that when I spot-checked a group of the back 4 registers of a night, I and every other supervisor would simply tie up the bag and walk across the floor by ourselves to the desk to lock it in. The 'secure' draw in our desk, however, uses the same key as the parcel cabinet where our cashiers keep their bags and stuff in, so it's a regular practice to give the keychain to whichever staff needed it for them to unlock their stuff.
I got sick of this and started a new thing where we spot-check the till, but leave the money in the draw. Then once the store is closed and I have the duty manager with me, we go into every register bay and do NoSale/Float In&Out and stow the float in the bag. I've worked it out that our 19 registers *can* be done this way easily within the 30minutes I get rostered to close, so time isn't a problem...
Until we get a new duty manager from another store who spent the whole time lecturing me about how no other store does this, and how it isn't her responsibility blah blah blah ... She wouldn't even go into the register bay or near the till at all... Then kept going on about how she's been managed for like 10 years etc and no one ever does this (ergh managers w/ a decade of experience should know that you need to help other departments as the head of the store and not just fill the shelves the whole night and think that any other task including customers are a waste of time or distraction...) Frankly even if the other stores restrict access to the service desk keys and don't hand them out to people, or make sure all money is accompanied with escorts etc, to me the draw in the service desk is not secure enough to store company money. A register's till, however, is the safest way to store the money during trading hours: you need numbers to access it and every action is logged and forcing the till open with a crowbar or something isn't easy to do unnoticed. The draw, however,... people go in and out for staff purchase stickers and whatnot... there's no accountability.
Lol huge rant... what does everyone else think though?