Archived Register skim?

[Flabbergasted]

I've read and heard about register skimming, and I've seen the skim bags in the CO, but my store has never done it to my knowledge. Not even on Black Friday. We just allow the bills to overflow in and under the drawer and sometimes it gets really messy and definitely presents a modicum of an AP risk. So, as a GSA, I'd like to be able to perform these "skims" if possible, when needed. Does anyone know how to do it? Do I just walkie the LOD & go into the CO for the bags? Then, presumably, I would take all the money out and give the cashier a start fund bundle?

Pardon my ignorance but I have no idea how the Cash Office works. None of the GSTLs/GSAs are CO-trained at my store as we have two dedicated COTMs.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

There used to be a blue bag for skims in the coupon drawer. the funds are added to the safe.. Take it to the cash office when collected.

 

[mrknownothing]

My store only skims a handful of times each year, and when they do a skim, they skim all the registers. You should have a specific set of bags for skims. AP or the LOD must accompany you; they'll hold onto the big red box while you remove the money from the drawers or vice versa. Do not close the register to do a skim. Instead, use K5 > K1. Remember, the money that gets taken out of the register is still part of today's total for that register, so closing the register would mess up the process in 239 the next morning.

 

[StaticSun]

My ETL-GE would not allow me to skim under any circumstances, outside of the days leading up to/after black friday.

 

[sigma7]

If we feel that our register might need a skim, we are trained to put the excess bills under the till.

The only day that the registers get skimmed is Black Friday.

 

[redeye58]

We do skims on ultra-heavy days: Black Thurs/Fri, tax-free weekend, Dec 26th, last day before Easter/Christmas, etc
We take the cash cart with AP with a tub containing the skim set on top of the cart. The areas skimmed in our store are Electronics/entertainment & checklanes. We come to a register, do an open function, pull out all bills under the drawer & thin the bills on top (ie: big wad of $20s left with about 5-6, excess ones pulled out, etc), put them in the skim bag of the corresponding number, zip & drop. Repeat as necessary until the heaviest drawers have been skimmed. Return the cart to CO & put the filled bags in the safe. The COTM will combine the bags in the morning before beginning the loc count.

 

[mrknownothing]

Since a skim only involves removing 20s, 50s, and 100s, what are you supposed to do if you have a ton of 1s, 5s, or 10s? When I was a cashier, there were a few occasions when guests paid me with lots of 1s.

 

[redeye58]

We skimmed ANY denom that had a wad whether it was a crap-ton of ones, a sh1tload of $5s, etc.
When I did counts on the drawers that were skimmed, they were usually in excess of $4K.

 

[awbuckit]

I've done the skimming for Black Friday for the past 2 years. I guess they trust me because they didn't even have an LOD go with me, just another TM. We had the cashier open the drawer and pull out all but 5 or so 20s, all 50s and 100s.
CO will accept any denom of bills. We just add them into that register's count and move on. No biggie.
Never, never, never do cashiers at my store put bills under the till. Nothing goes under there. lol
An easy way to do the process quickly, I found, is to do all of the odd lanes first then do express, then even lanes and SB and Food. We dropped all of that off in CO and then walked back to electronics. Of course, all stores are laid out differently.

 

[sigma7]

Never, never, never do cashiers at my store put bills under the till. Nothing goes under there.

That's what the slits in the drawer are for. So what do electronics and other non-checklane TMs that ring sales do with coupons, tax exempt slips, other media, etc at their outpost registers? And what do all of your cashiers do with bills in denominations larger than $20? I thought best practice was for the slots in the till from left to right was checks, $20s, $10s, $5s, and $1s. All other bills go under the till ($100s, $50s, and I guess $2s if you get them). That's the best practice at my store anyway. Drives me crazy to see $50s and $100s in the check slot.

 

[awbuckit]

That's what the slits in the drawer are for. So what do electronics and other non-checklane TMs that ring sales do with coupons, tax exempt slips, other media, etc at their outpost registers? And what do all of your cashiers do with bills in denominations larger than $20? I thought best practice was for the slots in the till from left to right was checks, $20s, $10s, $5s, and $1s. All other bills go under the till ($100s, $50s, and I guess $2s if you get them). That's the best practice at my store anyway. Drives me crazy to see $50s and $100s in the check slot.

From left to right, ours is 1, 5, 10, 20 and then checks, 2s, 50s and 100s in the last space.
All lanes have a red drawer beneath the register to put coupons and sales audit slips/tax exempt slips into.

 

[NitroKing2110]

From left to right, ours is 1, 5, 10, 20 and then checks, 2s, 50s and 100s in the last space.
All lanes have a red drawer beneath the register to put coupons and sales audit slips/tax exempt slips into.

That red drawer is not for coupons and other things. That's the "lane drawer" for holding receipt and coupon paper, redcard apps, the ad; and other supplies. Coupons, slips, and tax exempt documents go under the cash tray in the register drawer. From what I was taught, this is target best practice and policy. I hope your store doesn't get people snagging coupons and sales slips from the exposed lane drawers.

 

[mrknownothing]

That's what the slits in the drawer are for. So what do electronics and other non-checklane TMs that ring sales do with coupons, tax exempt slips, other media, etc at their outpost registers? And what do all of your cashiers do with bills in denominations larger than $20? I thought best practice was for the slots in the till from left to right was checks, $20s, $10s, $5s, and $1s. All other bills go under the till ($100s, $50s, and I guess $2s if you get them). That's the best practice at my store anyway. Drives me crazy to see $50s and $100s in the check slot.

When we had the IBM registers, we had those dark flat plastic things (I have no idea what they're called) in the far left compartment that would go on top of the large bills to hide them. The NCR registers don't have them, but we still use the far left compartment for large bills and keep checks on top.

From left to right, ours is 1, 5, 10, 20 and then checks, 2s, 50s and 100s in the last space.
All lanes have a red drawer beneath the register to put coupons and sales audit slips/tax exempt slips into.

That red drawer is not for coupons and other things. That's the "lane drawer" for holding receipt and coupon paper, redcard apps, the ad; and other supplies. Coupons, slips, and tax exempt documents go under the cash tray in the register drawer. From what I was taught, this is target best practice and policy. I hope your store doesn't get people snagging coupons and sales slips from the exposed lane drawers.

We've always used the red drawers at the checklanes for coupons and media. Only the non-checklane registers ever have things underneath the till. Imagine having an extreme couponer come through your lane and trying to stuff all those coupons through that slot; the till wouldn't stay down and the drawer would get jammed.

 

[sigma7]

At the front lanes, we use the red drawer to hold all coupons, slips, and the like in addition to the ad and other checklane supplies.

 

[Flabbergasted]

That red drawer is not for coupons and other things. That's the "lane drawer" for holding receipt and coupon paper, redcard apps, the ad; and other supplies. Coupons, slips, and tax exempt documents go under the cash tray in the register drawer. From what I was taught, this is target best practice and policy. I hope your store doesn't get people snagging coupons and sales slips from the exposed lane drawers.

On the contrary, the red drawers most likely ARE for coupons and other media. At my store, we don't use the drawers for coupons which is an issue because then whenever the GSTL/GSA closing checklist lists registers for "Remove Media Only," those registers get auto-closed, but we still have to get the coupons/media out. So we have to re-open the register. I'm positive if Spot didn't want us using the red drawers for those media, then the registers for "Remove Media Only" wouldn't auto-close. And it seems most stores do in fact use the red drawers for that media.

 

[NitroKing2110]

When we had the IBM registers, we had those dark flat plastic things (I have no idea what they're called) in the far left compartment that would go on top of the large bills to hide them. The NCR registers don't have them, but we still use the far left compartment for large bills and keep checks on top.





We've always used the red drawers at the checklanes for coupons and media. Only the non-checklane registers ever have things underneath the till. Imagine having an extreme couponer come through your lane and trying to stuff all those coupons through that slot; the till wouldn't stay down and the drawer would get jammed.

At the front lanes, we use the red drawer to hold all coupons, slips, and the like in addition to the ad and other checklane supplies.

On the contrary, the red drawers most likely ARE for coupons and other media. At my store, we don't use the drawers for coupons which is an issue because then whenever the GSTL/GSA closing checklist lists registers for "Remove Media Only," those registers get auto-closed, but we still have to get the coupons/media out. So we have to re-open the register. I'm positive if Spot didn't want us using the red drawers for those media, then the registers for "Remove Media Only" wouldn't auto-close. And it seems most stores do in fact use the red drawers for that media.

Hmm, I stand corrected. I'll add this to the list of things my store does that's completely different from every other store ever.

 

[mrknownothing]

Hmm, I stand corrected. I'll add this to the list of things my store does that's completely different from every other store ever.

If your store has AP issues, then it would make sense to do what you guys do.

 

[redeye58]

Our store puts $2, $50 & $100 bills under the till; coupons & media go in the red drawer so they can still be picked up if that register auto-closes.

 

[PinkZinnia]

@mrknownothing - we have the ncr registers and we have the flat black things (I don't know what they are called either) for the far left slot. We put 50's and hundreds underneath and checks on top. Providing cashiers remember to do that. - usually in cash office we are separating them .
We put the coupons, audit slips (and other paperwork), red gift cards, applications, esp's in the top red drawer. Bottom drawer gets register and coupon paper, red bags and GARBAGE - because I work with a bunch of slobs.

We usually skim on very very busy days. Always have LOD, ETL, AP or TL with us. It's not because of tm trust, it's for security reasons. Wheeling big red around during peak hours can be tempting to steal for some of our guests, and on busy days we aren't going to pull a cashier off a register.

 

[RedMan]

On the contrary, the red drawers most likely ARE for coupons and other media. At my store, we don't use the drawers for coupons which is an issue because then whenever the GSTL/GSA closing checklist lists registers for "Remove Media Only," those registers get auto-closed, but we still have to get the coupons/media out. So we have to re-open the register. I'm positive if Spot didn't want us using the red drawers for those media, then the registers for "Remove Media Only" wouldn't auto-close. And it seems most stores do in fact use the red drawers for that media.

Did you know that you can open the cash drawer without using the re-open function? Pull the drawer out part way - in the middle back is a little hole in which you can insert a finger. There's a bar (can't describe it properly but you'll know it when you feel it) which pops the cash drawer open.

We keep our coupons and audit slips in the red drawer. I'm pretty sure there's a picture on WorkBench which shows where everything is supposed to be kept.

 

[redeye58]

Did you know that you can open the cash drawer without using the re-open function? Pull the drawer out part way - in the middle back is a little hole in which you can insert a finger. There's a bar (can't describe it properly but you'll know it when you feel it) which pops the cash drawer open..

Yeh, it takes a screwdriver or something equally hard.
Thing is, there's a place for a keybolt in the drawer; anyone remember the old registers in which you could open the drawer with a key even if the register was dead? Really miss that.

 

[Flabbergasted]

Yeh, it takes a screwdriver or something equally hard.
Thing is, there's a place for a keybolt in the drawer; anyone remember the old registers in which you could open the drawer with a key even if the register was dead? Really miss that.

Yeah, there should really be a keyhole where the GSTL 10 key fits or something, so drawers can be opened without being "opened."

 

[redeye58]

When they installed the new registers (yrs ago), the GSTLs asked why they didn't have keybolts.
AP said it was "too difficult rekeying all the registers should a set of keys get lost/stolen".
Really?

 

[NitroKing2110]

When they installed the new registers (yrs ago), the GSTLs asked why they didn't have keybolts.
AP said it was "too difficult rekeying all the registers should a set of keys get lost/stolen".
Really?

"Too difficult"
😡

One simply creates a new key to replace the lost one, with a different scoring, order cores that support the new keys, and use the "core master" key that takes out all the cores to replace them. About 10 seconds per lock.

 

[mrknownothing]

@mrknownothing - we have the ncr registers and we have the flat black things (I don't know what they are called either) for the far left slot. We put 50's and hundreds underneath and checks on top. Providing cashiers remember to do that. - usually in cash office we are separating them .

How did you acquire them? If they didn't come with the registers, I should see if one of the GSTLs might be able to order them.

"Too difficult"
😡

One simply creates a new key to replace the lost one, with a different scoring, order cores that support the new keys, and use the "core master" key that takes out all the cores to replace them. About 10 seconds per lock.

From what I understand, re-coring is expensive. Also, many APs don't want to have to deal with that.