If your business is upgrading and moving into the twenty first century, then it can be assumed that you’re looking for a cash drawer to go with your brand new point of sale terminal. There are a number of things you should keep in mind when shopping for a cash drawer. Shopify offers cash drawers to all businesses at a reasonable price. Price consideration is important, but there are other functional concerns that should be addressed such as:
Durability in Construction
This usually depends upon how often you’re going to be using your drawer to do transactions. Drawers that do a lot of transactions and contain a lot of money should usually be constructed of heavy duty material, whether galvanized steel or otherwise. Medium duty drawers may not do as much opening and closing but their material should be similarly high-quality in order to prevent them from breaking through overuse. The drawer themselves should be built to take a lot of human interaction such as the movements of the cashier using them. Flimsy construction rules out a lot of cash drawers. Even the ones that may not see as much use should be made of high quality materials.
Locking Functions
When your cash drawer is closed it’s unlikely that you’d want it reopened by someone unauthorized. Most cash drawers come with electronic locking functionality. This enables an electronic lock to trigger once the drawer is closed to ensure that it can’t be easily reopened. The benefit of these is that it makes the system almost tamper-proof. Even if someone were to force the physical lock to get at the cash drawer they would still have to bypass the electronic locks to get access to the funds. In addition to this, the drawers should also come with a physical lock. This manual control lock enables someone to open the cash drawer to give out change in the event of a power failure or otherwise. As a backup situation, it is very useful.
Cash Tray
This is the till that fits into the tray in order to delineate the different denominations of bills. This should be designed with the cashier in mind and laid out in a simple, efficient manner to allow for the rapid dispensation of change when the need arises. The time honored method of arranging the till is followed in most till designs because it provides a well-accepted method of laying out the denomination of bills and coins that is common to most places around the globe. The simple layout of the cash till is a benefit because of the fact that staff do not need to get used to the layout since it is common enough to older till layouts.
Cash Drawer Interface
The interface for a cash drawer can come in a number of different methods. The drawer can be directly connected to the receipt printer so that when a receipt is generated and printed, the cash drawer opens automatically. This is very handy because of the automatic nature of the cash drawer opening. It makes for efficient operation by trained cashiers. Serial driven drawers are connected to the point of sale terminal via a single serial cable. The drawer can then be opened from the terminal interface easily, allowing for dispensation of change when needed. Finally, manually driven drawers don’t connect to the terminal at any point and are opened independently. This can be a nuisance to efficient operation, especially if the cashier is required to open the drawer after every single transaction. However, if the drawer does not need to be opened after each transaction, then it makes for faster operation overall. Your decision of what type of interface you want for your drawer should be based on what sort of business you transact and how often you would need the cash drawer opened.
The details of purchasing a cash drawer to go with a point of sale terminal are based on the requirements that the drawer needs to fulfil. The usage that the drawer will go through is directly related to the type of drawers that you would buy to support your point of sale terminal. The locking functions that come integrated into your cash drawer should be enough to give you peace of mind, but not so much that it is difficult to manage the ins and outs of the register. A well-constructed cash drawer can last you a lifetime if managed properly. Interface options would differ based on how you plan to use the drawer and how often you need it to be opened. Once all these considerations are weighed and measured a final solution can be drawn and you can easily figure out the best cash drawer to buy for your business. Remember the cash drawer should support the business and the point of sale terminal in its operation and so it is a very important decision that should be given a lot of thought.
