In retail business, having the proper information about the daily transaction is important. Otherwise, retail loss is more likely to occur in the business in the form of shoplifting, employee theft, admin error, and distribution chain theft. These are the main avenues of retail loss in any type of retail chain. Another most critical problem in retail business is inventory shrinkage. Inventory shrinkage is a term of financial accounting which tends to lose product or profits from manufacturing to final sale for the retailer. It may tend to loss of billions of dollars in a year. There are many possible issues of inventory shrinkage and the employee theft and shoplifting includes 44% of cases of loss every year. Hence, this is crucial to make policies in order to combat these types of losses. Measures to combat retail loss 1.Follow security measures: Apart from hiring a security guard, install security camera in the workroom and store and this is the proven evidence in case of any criminal activity. This is one of the popular ideas these days of retailers. Also watch the security camera at the end of every day in order to keep an eye on daily activities. It prevents employee theft and shoplifting for many retailers. Another way to combat employee theft is placing security tags on the products which can be shoplifted easily. 2.Maintain a strict policy against employee theft: Explain your employees clearly that theft is a serious offense and there is no second change. Strict policy is important because employee may steal and they may take your business lightly. 3.Provide proper training to employees: There are various things to consider prevent the cases of shoplifting in the store. Make sure checkout time is entered of each employee and have checkout registers in all exits. Small businesses generally have only one exit but bigger hypermarkets have multiple exits so it is important to have checkout registers in all exists. Train all the employees and packagers to lift and handle all products with care. In this way, you can prevent damage of products. If your store has unmanned exit with no checkout register, block that way. Make sure all the security guards and cashiers are doing well to check all items are paid for and recorded. 4.Don’t buy perishable goods in bulk quantity: Buy perishable goods each week or month in order to prevent loss or risk of throw away. It requires proper record keeping in the organization. 5.Have proper and complete paperwork: Check and balance system is important among the employees in order to prevent administrative errors. Make a strict policy that person who prepares the documents send all the purchase orders and payment vouchers to be crosschecked and signed by another person. Preventing Employee Theft by POS Terminal An efficient Point of Sale software solution can combat various cases of employee theft in the following ways: 1.POS terminal lets you check out all the transactions to find suspicious behavior, if any. Suspicious behavior in the sense excessive and unwanted access cash drawer, small amounts recorded of refunds, and the entry of goods return which is not matched with the product. 2.Look out the register for each voided and deleted sale entry. Employees can steal products by voiding a real sale. 3.Each employee should be signed in with a unique id and password into the POS terminal with a limit to access things in the terminal. For instance, employees have to call the manager to make void entry of product returns. 4.Locate suspicious losses by studying profit margins daily. If you find the substantial losses only in a particular department, investigate the department to find the evidence of loss. 5.You can use protection software on your POS terminal in order to prevent employees to access customer’s credit card information from the terminal. POS software to prevent sales return fraud Just imagine, you are a retail outlet owner and a customer buys a branded shirt from your store. Two days later, he returns with that shirt and a complaint about fit or stain. In that case, you have to give him the money back and end up with that shirt to discard completely. Other instance may happen with you is that a person may returns a pair of jeans and show you the receipt with some defects with no choice for you. You have to return back the money than someone in your store find the receipt is fraudulent. Or other worse – your own employees make the return entry of stock from the display and take the money. You also lose money in that case. These three cases are the instances of sales return fraud. Now, it is possible to combat these cases with an efficient POS terminal. Let’s see how it can do this! 1.Tracking statistics of sales returns: Check out these things in order to avoid cases of sales return fraud: a.Hike of sales return rate all of a sudden. b.Large number of discarded return items. c.The sales returned items to be resold have been gone down suddenly. The POS Software can easily catch these activities and help you stop these offenses in your store. 2.Print digital signatures: The stolen product can be returned by gift card or cash which is another case of sales return fraud. It is possible to verify the returned item with digital receipts. And this is important to have these receipts otherwise it may tend to loss. You can easily train your staff to have digital receipts. In this way, customers would also stay happy with your services. 3.Make special notes: The POS software is capable to make special notes against habitual customers who return products again and gain. Closely check the items retuned and follow the policies regarding excessive returns. 4.Exchange Mode: Counter fake products return by programming your POS System to scan the item to be returned and the new item. It will also help the cashier to deal with this situation. Visit geminicomputersinc.com to know more about POS Software.
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