We live in a “smart” world. On a daily basis, we’re surrounded by smart devices, like smartphones, smart TVs, smart doorbells, and smart thermostats, all designed to make tasks easier or safer. While businesses can benefit from various types of smart devices, smart safes are an excellent investment that can help keep cash secure and save employees’ time.

What is a smart safe?

A smart safe is a device that securely stores cash and uses technology to help businesses manage cash. While features among smart safes vary, many of them tend to validate bills, record cash amounts, connect to point-of-sale systems, control who has access, and provide information about employee activity. Additionally, smart safes usually come with more safeguards than traditional safes – many smart safes require an employee PIN, badge, or even biometrics (like fingerprint scanning) for access.

Why do you need a smart safe?

Smart safes come with a variety of benefits. First and foremost, they help protect businesses’ hard-earned cash. When smart safes have bill validators, businesses can minimize the risk of accepting counterfeit bills and have the device validate cash amounts that employees add.

Since employees can add cash to smart safes, they no longer have to travel to the bank, which may minimize the risk of theft to employees. Additionally, reducing or eliminating trips to the bank gives time back to employees, allowing them to focus on other tasks. Smart safe technology highlights which employees added cash to the safe, allowing for identifications of errors made by individuals. Smart safes also provide added visibility into cash, especially if a business has stores across multiple locations.

How can your smart safe be even smarter?

There are smart safes and then there’s the Brink’s Box, which takes cash management to the next level. The Brink’s Box is one of the device options that comes with the Brink’s Complete solution. It enables businesses to save time and money, all while keeping cash secure. We’ll give you advance credit the next business day to the bank account of your choice based on the value of the cash declared.

In addition to having fast access to working capital and skipping unnecessary bank trips, you won’t have to pay the bank traditional bank deposit fees. The Brink’s Box works seamlessly with our 24SEVEN customer portal and app, which provides insights into your cash through reports and dashboards. Having access to information about your cash can help you make informed business decisions.

If your business makes frequent cash transactions throughout the day or if you have other reasons for requiring note validation, we also offer the Brink’s B-Safe. It accepts and validates individual notes, eliminating long end-of-day deposit counts. Using a barcoded badge to authenticate access, employees can easily add large denominations.

How do the Brink’s Box and B-Safe work?

The Brink’s Box or B-Safe is installed in your business wherever is most convenient (usually somewhere in the back office or at the register).

For the Brink’s Box, when an employee is ready to drop cash into the box, they’ll place the money in a barcoded Brink’s-provided bag, open 24SEVEN on a mobile device or computer, and scan or enter the bag’s barcode. Next, in the portal, they’ll enter the amount of cash they plan to drop. For the B-Safe, when an employee is ready to drop cash into the box, they’ll insert notes into the validators.

Once cash is within the devices, your business will get credit to the bank account of your choice the next business day. Brink’s messengers will come and pick up the cash in the box to ensure they are never full. Once cash has been picked up, you can track its whereabouts in 24SEVEN. All of this, including your device, is included in a single subscription-based priced.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Brink’s Box or B-Safe, or you’d like to see a demo, be sure to send us a note.