We know this is a sensitive issue for a lot of people and you may be impossible for us to win over but we thought we would give you some of our reasoning for it, then at least hopefully you might grudgingly forgive us!
Cashing up – in a business that accepts cash, there is a cashing up and float building process that must take place on a daily basis. This is almost always done by the general manager. Somewhat conservatively, this process takes half an hour a day which has a cost of c£10 to the business. Over the course of a year this cost is £3,650 per pub.
Collecting change – businesses that accept cash, need change. Generally this involves two trips per week to the bank. Again conservatively let’s say that is an hour a week of the general manager’s time (c£20). Over the course of a year that is therefore a cost of £2,000 to our business.
Charges associated with change – cash withdrawals attract a charge of 1.5%. A normal float is £200 so assuming we needed to withdraw £100 of that twice a week. The total annual cost to the business would be £300.
Bank charges – every time a business visits the bank to pay cash in, there is a flat charge in addition to % of amount deposited. If we accepted cash, the cost to us would be approximately £3,500k per year per pub. This is mitigated slightly by card payment charges which would be c£1k for the year so let’s call it £2,500k for bank charges.
As you can see above, we estimate that the cost of accepting cash in this pub would be around £7,500k over the next twelve months.
There are some additional elements which are harder to quantify but are also advantages of being cashless:
Environmental - two to three trips per week to the bank have a detrimental impact on our carbon footprint
Counterfeit – when a business accepts cash in large volumes, unfortunately an element of it is always going to be counterfeit and not accepted by the bank. It is hard to assign a value to this but it would certainly be hundreds of pounds in a year and probably into the thousands.
Internal theft – when there is cash in a business, then you must trust your team to store it all safely in the safe and then bank it all. We have been victims of theft internally to the value of £4,000 in the past.
Team safety – robberies of businesses that carry cash are commonplace and often armed. The removal of cash from the business reduces the likelihood of crime like this and keeps our team safer.
Money laundering – much of the cash floating around the economy has been earned illicitly or has been paid in that form in order to avoid taxation. We don’t support this and like the fact that being cashless, we do not contribute to it.