Cash Management

Integrated EFT Cash Management

Integrated EFT gives a significant two-fold saving on each site.

If you use PDQ EFT terminals, inter-site EFT communication and EFT communication to head office/Clearing bank is by rented line and line rental is approximately £300 per site per year. Aztec has no such cost.

Time saving per transaction is estimated at about 10 to 15 seconds. An additional benefit is that EFT on each terminal (standard or handheld EPoS) allows the credit/debit card to remain within sight of the customer. This is never the case with shared PDQ terminals.

Our EFT system is approved by all the main UK banks and clearing houses and Chip & PIN is also available. These solutions are integrated into our EPoS hardware and EPoS and Finance applications so you do not need to purchase any extra hardware or software to use these features.

Chip and PIN

On 1 January 2005, a liability shift in the responsibility for credit card fraud occurred. This means that the retailer is now liable for lost, stolen and counterfeit fraud if a Chip and PIN terminal was not used. After February 14th 2006 cardholders must use their PIN to be able to pay with their Chip and PIN cards. If shoppers don't use a PIN, their card may be declined and the option of signing can no longer be guaranteed.

Recent consumer research conducted by RSGB Omnibus (Sept 05) shows that UK cardholders have overwhelmingly embraced Chip and PIN. 87 per cent of Chip and PIN cardholders find Chip and PIN easy to use.

Trading results in the six months to June 2005 have shown that there has been a £36 million reduction in counterfeit and lost and stolen fraud on plastic cards compared with the same period last year. This reduction of nearly a third (29%) - from £126.6m in the first six months of 2004 to £89.9m in the same period in 2005 - is due to the new Chip and PIN system and shows the huge effect that using PIN is having on fighting fraud. This represents a fall of 31 per cent in counterfeit card fraud and 27 per cent in lost and stolen card fraud.

If you have a Chip and PIN system in your estate and a fraudulent transaction occurs, the card issuer or card holder is responsible provided that you have followed all appropriate guidelines, for example manually checking the card. This only applies to transactions where the card holder is present at the time the transaction is carried out.

The Aztec solution supports Chip and PIN so you can now benefit from the security this offers. Each new customer requires a certification process by Zonal before the system can go live.

Submission of funds is approved by:

APACS29 - Central Submission from multiple sites via a customer's head office
APACS50 - Daily direct modem dial in to each site

EFT Cash Back: The EFT Cash Back facility in use within Zonal customer sites has been a huge success with everyone reporting a noticeable increase in sales since the installation of this service. The sales increase within one of our large leisure customer's estate, since the installation of their cash back service, has been measured at approximately 10%.
Cash Drawer Assignment: If necessary, you can assign a member of staff or a group of staff to use only one cash drawer. Interim cash pick ups (cash skims) are supported as are floats. Cashup can be configured at head office to be blind and if appropriate, force staff to enter exact cash note denominations. Cashup of terminals can be per terminal or by a defined group of terminals.
Cash skimming: Cash skimming prevents you having to leave large amounts of money in the cash drawers and an easy recording process enables you to record the value of the skim at the terminal and then forget about it. The Finance system will make the necessary adjustments to the cash-up figure accordingly.
Bank collection: Bank collection can now be recorded from the back office PC allowing better traceability and control.
Floats: Float values can be defined at the terminal or the back office PC for added convenience.
Daily Accounting: Simple, easy-to-read screen displays all aspects of a site's daily accounting; income, bankings, expenses, etc.
Deposit and Account Handling: Aztec's integrated deposit and account handling feature prevents the need for any records to be kept outwith your EPoS system and saves significant time on the initial entry and ongoing management of deposits and accounts within your business. All entries are made at the EPoS terminal and the Aztec back office system takes care of the accounting and reporting so all money deposited by customers can be banked safely with the normal takings with no need to keep additional cash on-site.
Integration to Accounting Applications: Aztec interfaces seamlessly with the main accounting packages to reduce human error and minimise management time on report interpretation.