Advice on how to deal with theft in local retail businesses

Theft is a scourge in retail businesses. beyond the financial cost is a considerable motional cost to those in the business from employees to owners.

We shot a brief video a few months ago in which we discussed theft in retail, leveraging our years of experience helping local retailers to reduce theft.

There are things retailers can do to protect against theft as well as to deal with it when it is discovered. This video is a peek inside what Tower Systems offers its local specialty retail POS software customers.

As retailers ourselves we draw on lived experience in providing this advice. The more we all share on this challenging topic the better for all retailers.

Here is an example of some pf the advice we have provided to retailers.

Too many retailers read advice about theft and ignore it. Indeed, the most common trigger for small business retailers to work on reducing employee theft is the discovery of such theft. Here are simple steps you can take to detect and manage employee theft:

1. Track your stock. Receive all stock into your business through your computer system so you know exactly what sock you have.
2. Scan everything you sell. Do not use department keys as this makes it easier for employees to steal since they know there is no trackback to stock on hand. Using department keys is an invitation to steal.
3. Track every sale by employees. Give your employees a card with a unique barcode or have them enter a code – to track every sale they make back to them. Change the code every six months or so.
4. Do your end of shift through your software and have a zero-tolerance policy on being over or under. Reconcile banking to your computer software end of shift. One business where this was not done was being skimmed regularly for $200 a day.
5. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises. One retailer needing to do a banking during the day uncovered a $350 discrepancy that lead to discovery of systematic theft.
6. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal. One retailer found a family friend senior and their teenage daughter stealing consistently.
7. Check your Audit Log. Look at cancelled sales, deleted sales and items deleted from a sale. Leaving a cash drawer open from the previous sale, scanning items, taking the cash and cancelling the sale is the most common process used by employees to accrue cash they then take from you. Good software tracks cancelled sales and what was in them. This can be matched with video footage.
8. Check Gross Profit by department. If GP is falling outside what you expect, research it further.
9. Setup a theft policy. Put this on a noticeboard in the back room. Get staff to read it and sign up to it. See the last page of this advice.
10. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft. It makes detection easier.
11. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
12. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
13. Beware of calculators with memories at the counter. One retail business employee used the memory function to track how much cash had to be stolen prior to balancing for the day – cash from sales not rung up.
14. Do not let employees sell to themselves. If they want to purchase something make them purchase it from the other side of the counter.
15. Be professional in your management of the business. The more professional your approach they less likely your employees will steal as they will see the risk of being caught as high.
16. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
17. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

These steps work – based on decades of helping small business retailers to reduce and manage employee theft.