A manager or assistant manager is held up on the way to the bank to exchange large-denomination bills for smaller denominations. It may not happen frequently, but even once is too often, and in a worst-case scenario, employees can be harmed or killed.

To virtually eliminate the likelihood of any of that happening, a growing number of retail and restaurant chains participate in a cash-exchange program from Hunt Valley, Md.-based Dunbar Armored.

When a retailer is enrolled in both the Dunbar Armored car service and its EZChange program, the trucks that come to its stores or restaurants to pick up bank deposits simultaneously drop off previously ordered low-denomination bills for cash exchange. There is a fee for the service, but not for the individual cash exchanges.

Managers give the guards sealed, transparent, bar-coded packages containing large-denomination bills and receive back a similar package containing an equal amount of cash in smaller denominations.

Chico’s FAS, which operates 1,070 women’s specialty apparel stores nationwide, has been using EZChange for nearly a year. One of the greatest benefits, according to vice president of loss prevention Leo Doran, has been the extra security that comes from having an armored car service make the exchange rather than having managers shuttle cash to and from their local banks.

“Invariably, you are going to get bad people out there who know our routine,” he says. “They figure it out, and then they trail our store associates. But our cash-exchange armed robberies are down to zero this year. I think the word gets out. The bad people see that big red armored truck coming around and they are less likely to test you.”

And the associates “love it,” Doran says. “They are not being put in harm’s way. They don’t have to get in a vehicle, don’t have to negotiate traffic and don’t have to worry about finding a parking place at the bank or losing a parking space by their store. And we don’t have employees driving to and from a bank on our time, sometimes getting into accidents. So our insurance companies love the program as well.”

Doran particularly likes the fact that Dunbar provides bar-coded package tracking with each cash pick-up and delivery, making it possible for Chico’s to know where its money is from store pick-up to bank delivery and vice versa. That system, Dunbar D-Trak, is similar to the electronic package tracking systems used by Federal Express and UPS.

Molly Catalano, director of communications for Five Guys, a 439-unit hamburger chain based in Lorton, Va., makes similar points. “We don’t want to put our employees at risk,” she says, and having Dunbar personnel handling all cash transfers “makes it much safer for our employees. The risk of losing money is secondary to that.”

Still, Catalano says there are cost-saving benefits associated with using EZChange. “We used to spend a lot of time and money educating our employees and our franchisees on ways to do cash exchanges safely,” she says. “So EZChange is also a time-saver for us in that way.”

Five Guys has been using EZChange for approximately three years in its 50 company-owned stores. Catalano says the program was “a no-brainer for us to do and very easy to implement.” It has significantly reduced the company’s exposure to armored robbery incidents and employee theft, she says, and it has allowed managers “to use their time more efficiently.”

Many of Five Guys’ franchisees are using EZChange, as well. “We let our franchisees know the pros and cons of the programs [corporate is] using and, in this case, there weren’t any cons that I know of.”

Dunbar has more than 13,000 clients, 77 branches across the country and 36 cash vaults where they perform deposit processing. Ed Walsh, the company’s vice president of national accounts, says approximately 60 percent of Dunbar’s retail/restaurant customers use EZChange.

The service carries no bank or escrow fund fees, he says, and “an accounting department doesn’t have to wait 30 to 45 days or more for a bank statement to reveal that a deposit has not been made as expected. So if cash disappears, it’s immediately evident and the chances for recovery are very high.”

Time-saving for managers
At Chico’s, store managers were spending between five and seven hours a week making cash exchanges. In most cases, each exchange also cost
Chico’s an additional fee in the form of bank charges.

“We had managers who had to come in, open the store, then get a deposit in order and prepare their change order,” Doran says. “Then from the store, they had to get back in their vehicle, drive to the bank, do their deposit, get their change and drive back to the store. We figured there had to be a better way.”

Chico’s determined that using EZChange would save “at least three to five hours a week if we could keep those store managers in the store. We also looked at the money that the bank fees were costing us versus what we would be paying Dunbar and we realized, ‘hey, this is a wash.’ So the cost piece became non-existent [and] our managers would be where we wanted them to be — in the store, taking care of other store functions and focusing on the customers.”

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