The retail industry faces numerous logistical, operational, and financial challenges every day. Among these challenges, one of the critical processes that requires significant attention is the closing of cash registers at Points of Sale (PoS), where transactions conducted during the day are reconciled, and revenue is verified to match the recorded sales.
Errors in this area can have a significant impact on the profitability and reliability of the company. However, thanks to blockchain technology and solutions like iBS , companies in this industry can improve the efficiency and integrity of this crucial process.
Challenges in POS
Economic losses associated with retail POS are the main source of losses in retail companies. Challenges during this process can hinder the identification and resolution of problems. Among them, we can highlight:
- Human errors: cashiers and sales employees can make errors when recording transactions, counting cash, or calculating change. These errors can result in discrepancies in the cash register closing reports.
- Internal fraud: the retail sector often faces the risk of internal fraud, where employees can steal money or products or manipulate records to cover up their illicit activity. These acts can be difficult to detect without adequate security systems.
- Unidentified employees: in the retail sector, accurately identifying employees can be a challenge, especially in companies with a large number of temporary or part-time workers. This can make it difficult to track who conducted each transaction and who was responsible for closing the cash registers.
- Constant shift changes: the transition between different employees throughout the day can create additional challenges to ensure accuracy in cash register closing and continuity in transaction recording.
- Variety of payment methods: customers use a variety of payment methods, including cash, credit cards, debit cards, and mobile payment apps. Managing and reconciling all these methods can be complex.
- Vouchers and discounts: vouchers, discounts, and special promotions can complicate cash register closing, as they must be recorded and managed correctly to ensure proper application.
- Online and offline transactions: online and offline sales can be part of the same retail operation. Coordinating and reconciling these sales can be a challenge, especially when separate systems are used.
- High transaction volume: large retailers can conduct thousands of transactions per day. Efficiently and accurately managing this transaction volume is essential to avoid financial losses.
- Systems integration: integrating point-of-sale systems, inventory management systems, and cash register closing systems can be complicated. Data must flow seamlessly between these systems to achieve accurate reconciliation.
Current systems do not mitigate these challenges, as they do not address the root of the problem: discouraging bad practices by obtaining 100% reliable evidence that allows demonstrating and preventing wrongdoing or fraudulent practices without any possibility of repudiation by those involved (employees, store managers, etc.). This is where the iBS platform from iCommunity emerges as a solution to significantly improve accuracy and security in this critical process.
iBS: Generating blockchain evidence for cash register closing
To address this situation, iBS is presented as a platform for the decentralized generation of 100% reliable evidence using blockchain technology.
Through the use of our platform in retail POS, companies can:
- Eliminate bad practices, reducing unknown losses, and facilitating early error detection.
- Reduce losses due to fraud and/or POS-related failures (cash register discrepancies, inventory manipulation, transaction omissions, etc.).
- Facilitate transaction verification and real-time audits, thereby improving the company’s legal compliance.
- Increase trust in the company-employee relationship by providing the necessary security and transparency for both parties through identity verification.
