If you have been lucky enough and attended basic accounting 201 and 202 classes, you will be very familiar with the words “dual control”. Everything related to financial transactions is subject to dual control. This means you should incorporate processes and procedures into your daily accounting function that does not give total control over your accounts receivables and accounts payables into the hands of one person.
Your business may not be large enough to have multiple employees who work in your accounting/book keeping department. Therefore you will most likely have one person “Your Book Keeper” who creates invoices being sent to your customers, receipts the cash, check or credit card transactions from your customers for payment of these transactions, reconciles your checking accounts, your credit card statements, orders supplies, orders inventory parts and then pays for the parts and the supplies. Maybe this person also handles the payroll and pays expense reports. Now, one thing he/she probably doesn’t do is sign the actual checks. Well, good for you since at least you have one control in place.
If this description of your book keepers job description matches one that you currently deploy, trouble is brewing on the horizon. But why do you care since you are still drawing a pay check. Oh but wait, this is your company, you are responsible for everything in the end. But you as the owner of this small company are so busy with networking, generating sales leads, managing your operations, dealing with unhappy clients, exploring new business opportunities you couldn’t possibly spend time supervising your book keeper too. Besides, Mary Beth has been with your company for the last 5 years. She has always done an excellent job.
But today is the day when you will receive that call from a customer who doesn’t understand why you have run his credit card multiple times for a transaction. Or maybe the bank calls and tells you that your account is overdrawn. Or your vendor contacts you about unpaid invoices. Or you apply for a loan and you need to provide financial statements but the numbers don’t add up.
You realize that something is not right and the need for an internal theft investigation has arrived. Although you are good at what you do in your business, you don’t know how to even begin to conduct an internal theft investigation. So what is the first thing you need to do to un-do these events and get to the bottom of this situation? An internal theft investigation will include quietly compiling evidence of any fraudulent transactions, controlling your emotions and obtaining professional help.
For more information about internal theft investigations, contact us or call 1.770.913.2467 – Atlanta Georgia
When considering starting your own business, you need to make decisions about a number of things, i.e. type of ownership, financing, location of your business, retail space, pricing, merchandising, advertising, marketing, staffing, etc. The list is long and at times seems endless. You keep referring back to your business plan, update and modify the plan to keep it fluid and up-to-date.
The time to open your retail business has finally arrived, the store is fully stocked, your staff has been hired and is in place ready to assist your customers. You have a good accountant and a good banker on hand. You are full of hope and enthusiasm. After your store has been open, you begin to review your sales and your net profit on a periodic basis.
Your marketing strategy is working well and your sales are above average, however, you cannot figure out why your net profit is not keeping pace? If your average merchandise item is selling for $15 and your net profit margin is 15 percent, you should clear $2.25 on each item you are selling. You just placed another order of merchandise amounting to $15,000. Your total sales thus far should be about $100,000 with a net profit of $15,000, however, your numbers don’t add up. When you compare the inventory you originally purchased, subtract the total items sold, the remaining balance does not match your inventory count. This difference is called inventory shrinkage.
You realize that you need to keep an eye on the inventory shrinkage totals. You are trying to figure out how your inventory loss of 100 pieces of inventory can be explained and/or eliminated. Some items were damaged and needed to be written off. But even after having made this accounting adjustment your inventory shrinkage is still high. Why is that? Then you realize that the inventory shrinkage can only be attributable to shoplifting or employee theft. Having lost 85 pieces of merchandise to thieves has affected your bottom line. If you had sold these 85 pieces, you could have earned an extra $191. Now you are faced with having to make up this inventory shrinkage by having to sell an additional 38 pieces of inventory just to break even.
Then you realize that your business plan did not include an anti shoplifting strategy. Where do you turn to learn about retail theft prevention? Granted you only lost $191 in net profit, you still had to pay for the merchandise and thus your cost of goods keeps increasing. An anti shoplifting strategy can incorporate contacting a loss prevention consultant and contracting for consulting services to help you understand your choices in putting an anti shoplifting strategy in place. One should start very early to the cycle of a new or existing business to implement the proper anti shoplifting policies and procedures.
For more information, contact us at anti shoplifting or call 1 770 426-0547.
I am not quite sure when you conduct your periodic inventory count but let’s presume that you just completed the count and you noticed that you are missing $10,000 in inventory. This number might represent 100 percent of your monthly sales or maybe less than 1 percent of your monthly sales or anywhere in between. This inventory shrinkage might be substantial.
Let’s also presume that your average profit margin is 5 basis points or in other words 5 percent of each item you are selling. How much in additional sales will you need in order to make up for the shortfall in inventory?
From an accounting perspective you can just write the inventory losses off. However, from a business perspective what do you have to do in order to reduce your inventory shrinkage?
Once you have determined the reasons for the inventory shrinkage, you can develop a strategy. Some of the shrinkage might be due to accounting entries but some of it may be attributable to shoplifting. So what can you do to stop shoplifting and implement a means to start your retail theft prevention strategy?
A Checkpoint Security System could easily be incorporated into your retail theft prevention strategy and become the cornerstone to stop shoplifting. A Checkpoint Security System can be purchased from a Checkpoint Security System dealer and will cost a fraction of the inventory shrinkage you just experienced in one month.
A Checkpoint Security System must be installed by a certified technician with the correct tools and software to ensure that the system is properly tuned. Periodic maintenance and adjustments are highly recommended to keep the system at peak performance due to changes in your store layout. These systems are highly reliable and will provide many years of assistance in your retail theft prevention strategy.
For more information contact your loss prevention consultants or call 1.770.426.0547 in Atlanta Georgia.
Have you been wondering how you are going to start controlling your increasing shrink numbers? Especially in a tough economy every business owner is looking for solutions to prevent shoplifting which is a significant contributor to your ever rising shrink numbers.
Are you in the market for an anti-shoplifting solution that could assist your bottom line? If the answer is yes, I would like to offer some possible solutions to improve your net margins.
Since shoplifting is one of the biggest drags on your bottom line, have you answered the question on how you are going to stop shoplifting? Although I am not aware of a way to completely stop shoplifting, having a solid business plan which includes well trained employees and using equipment like Checkpoint security systems can most certainly put the brakes on shoplifting losses in your stores.
Checkpoint security systems are made up of antennas which are installed at the front of the store while your merchandise is equipped with checkpoint tags or checkpoint labels. The type of merchandise you sell in your stores will dictate if you should use hard tag or labels or possibly both. The process to have Checkpoint Security systems installed is very straight forward; the Checkpoint tags can be attached to clothing articles while other merchandise should have Checkpoint labels applied. After you have deployed an anti-shoplifting strategy including Checkpoint Security Systems, you should see an increase in your bottom line within a very short period of time.
Retail theft prevention is not only responsible, it boosts your profits. Shoplifters can quickly ravage a store, and left unchallenged will hurt the morale of the store associates and eventually kill the business. If your business continues to experience losses, you may have to cut the hours of your employees. You may start on that downward spiral that may ultimately result in the closure of your business.
Start deploying anti-shoplifting measures to curb and continue on the road to stop shoplifting. Retail theft prevention is a true possibility, but you must take the first step and develop your anti-shoplifting program. Retail theft can be prevented by the use of Checkpoint security systems and will help put your business back in the black. If your store is experiencing inventory shrinkage and you are at a loss for the next step, consider what you’ve done to help on the anti-shoplifting front.
Please contact us for professional help in your fight to stop shoplifting.
For more information contact us at anti shoplifting or call 1.770.426.0547
When you go to a meeting, don’t you normally wear a name tag so that people know your name? Maybe you also include the name of your company and your position with the company.
Wouldn’t life be so much easier if shoplifters behaved the same way when they walk into your store? If each shoplifter wore a name tag saying “Hello, my name is Fred, I am self-employed and I am the lead shoplifter”. Truly, wouldn’t it be helpful if we could so easily detect a shoplifter? Unfortunately shoplifters don’t wear name tags advertising their profession.
In reality, there is not a “look” to a shoplifter. They can be dressed nice, dressed shabby, be clean, be unkempt, be male, or be female. There is no picture in the dictionary next to the word “shoplifter.”
Does that mean since we don’t have a picture of a typical shoplifter, there is nothing that your business can do to prevent shoplifting? Shoplifters can be detected more by their actions than their look. Shoplifters may be looking around and watching other customers and your employees. He/she may appear nervous or apprehensive. If he or she simply wanders through the store and does not appear to be shopping the way your other customers are shopping, you may very well be dealing with a shoplifter and yes, you can teach your employees how to identify a shoplifter and prevent shoplifting.
Some shoplifters work alone but many times they work in groups.
One person may distract the employee while the other steals. Once you teach your employees that anyone can be a shoplifter whether they enter your store as a single customer or in a group, they will be better prepared to prevent shoplifting.
Training of your employees is a key element to prevent shoplifting. Have your employees pay attention to their surroundings while they are working on your sales floor. If they are stocking shelves or straightening merchandise, they can still watch the customers around them and provide good customer service.
Make sure that your employees are aware which items are considered high theft. These items should be kept in an area where employees can monitor them. Employees should provide excellent customer service at all times – but especially when customers are looking at these high theft items.
Shoplifters will never wear name tags in public but you certainly can ensure that they will not frequent your store for the “deals” of the week by applying proven tips to prevent shoplifting in your store.
For more information contact us: prevent shoplifting or call 1.770.426.0547 Atlanta Georgia
