PROCESS OF AND SYSTEM FOR FACILITATING CASH COLLECTIONS DEPOSITS AND DEPOSIT TRACKING

• US 20110031306A2
• Filed: 07/23/2008
• Published: 02/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brink's Network, Inc. (The Brink's Company)
• Original Assignee: Brink's Network, Inc. (The Brink's Company)
• Inventors: BLACHOWICZ, Paul, BAKER, Aaron, PURCHES, Frederick
• Granted Patent: US 8,844,804 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/379.000
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06314 Calendaring for a resource
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0832 Special goods or special handling procedures, e.g. handling of hazardous or fragile goods
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/12 electronically operated digital data processing aspects G06Q20/00

Abstract

A process of facilitating cash collection deposits and deposit tracking includes identifying by a retailer an amount of cash collected by that retailer, including respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash, creating a deposit ticket containing at least a unique identification code associated therewith, depositing the created deposit ticket and the collected cash into a deposit bag, transporting the deposit bag to a cash processing facility, and counting at the cash processing facility the collected cash contained in the transported deposit bag to verify that the amount previously identified by the retailer corresponds to the counted amount. Particularly additional novel features include at least the following: the manner in which the retailer identifies the amount of collected cash; the manner in which the deposit bag may be scheduled for pickup; providing advance credit to the retailer for the cash deposits during various stages of cash handling/processing; and the particular manner of tracking the status of each of the deposit bags of a retailer'"'"'s multiple stores.

Claims

1. A process of facilitating cash collection deposits, comprising the steps of:

identifying by a retailer an amount of cash collected by the retailer, the identified amount including respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

creating at the retailer a deposit ticket, the deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith, the unique identification code being associated with the identified amount of collected cash;

depositing the created deposit ticket and the collected cash into a deposit bag;

transporting to a cash processing facility the deposit bag containing the deposit ticket and the collected cash;

ascertaining the identified amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the deposit ticked contained in the transported deposit bag;

counting, at the cash processing facility, the collected cash contained in the transported deposit bag to produce a counted amount of cash;

verifying, by the cash processing facility, that the ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash; and

arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit by a financial institute in an amount corresponding to the amount of the collected cash.

2. The process of claim 1, further comprising a step of depositing the counted collected cash into the financial institute.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying by a retailer comprises entering into an electronic device the respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

and transmitting from the electronic device to the cash processing facility data corresponding to information entered into the electronic device.

4. The process of claim 3, wherein the retailer enters into the electronic device via a predetermined webpage of the cash processing facility the respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash.

5. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying by a retailer includes identifying amounts of at least $100 bills, $50 bills and $20 bills of the collected cash.

6. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of creating at the retailer a deposit ticket comprises printing the deposit ticket on a standard size piece of paper.

7. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying by a retailer comprises the retailer communicating via a telephone the respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

and the step of creating at the retailer comprises sending a facsimile communication corresponding to the deposit ticket to the retailer and providing a printout at the retailer of the deposit ticket in accordance with the facsimile communication.

8. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of creating at the retailer a deposit ticket comprises including on the deposit ticket a bar code representing the unique identification code.

9. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of creating at the retailer a deposit ticket comprises including on the deposit ticket the respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash.

10. The process of claim 1, wherein the deposit bag is a tamper-evident type bag.

11. The process of claim 1, wherein the deposit bag includes an RFID chip that uniquely identifies the deposit bag.

12. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of transporting to a cash processing facility comprises the steps of automatically scheduling a pickup of the deposit bag from the retailer in accordance with a time when the deposit ticket is created;

and picking up the deposit bag from the retailer in accordance with the automatically scheduled pickup.

14. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of arranging for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out when the deposit ticket is created.

15. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of arranging for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out upon the cash processing facility verifying that the ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash.

16. The process of claim 1, further comprising a step of tracking a status of the deposit bag, the status of the deposit bag being a function of at least a location of the deposit bag and whether the verifying step has been carried out for the respective deposit bag.

31. The process of claim 1, wherein transporting the deposit bag to the cash processing facility includes picking up the deposit bag by an armored car service;

and the step of arranging for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out when the deposit bag is picked up from the retailer by the armored car service.

13. (canceled)

17. A process of facilitating cash collection deposits, comprising the steps of:

depositing cash collected by a retailer into an electronic safe disposed at the retailer;

identifying by the electronic safe an amount of the collected cash, the identified amount including respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

creating at the retailer a deposit ticket, the deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith, the unique identification code being associated with the identified amount of collected cash;

depositing the created deposit ticket and the collected cash into a deposit bag;

transporting to a cash processing facility the deposit bag containing the deposit ticket and the collected cash;

ascertaining the identified amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the deposit ticked contained in the transported deposit bag;

counting, at the cash processing facility, the collected cash contained in the transported deposit bag to produce a counted amount of cash; and

verifying, by the cash processing facility, that the ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash.

18. The process of claim 17, wherein the step of transporting to a cash processing facility comprises the steps of automatically scheduling a pickup of the deposit bag from the retailer in accordance with a time when the deposit ticket is created;

and picking up the deposit bag from the retailer in accordance with the automatically scheduled pickup.

19. The process of claim 17, further comprising a step of tracking a status of the deposit bag, the status of the deposit bag being a function of a location of the deposit bag and whether the verifying step has been carried out for the respective deposit bag.

20. The process of claim 17, further comprising communicating from the electronic safe to the cash processing facility the amount of the collected cash;

and wherein the step of creating at the retailer a deposit ticket includes accessing a predetermined webpage of the cash processing facility by the retailer using a computer disposed at the retailer and printing the deposit ticket in response to a print command on the computer while accessing the predetermined webpage, the deposit ticket being printed at the retailer.

32. The process of claim 17, comprising arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit by a financial institute in an amount corresponding to the amount of the collected cash.

33. The process of claim 32, wherein the step of arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out upon the cash processing facility verifying that the ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash.

34. The process of claim 32, wherein the step of arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out when the deposit ticket is created.

21. A process of facilitating cash collection deposits at a plurality of stores of a retailer, comprising the steps of:

identifying, at each of the stores of the retailer, by a manager at the respective store an amount of cash collected at the respective store, the identified amount including respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

creating, at each of the stores of the retailer, a deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith, the unique identification code being associated with the identified amount of collected cash at the respective store;

depositing, at each of the stores of the retailer, the created deposit ticket and the collected cash into a respective deposit bag;

transporting each of the deposit bags to a cash processing facility, each of the deposit bags containing the respective deposit ticket and the respective collected cash;

ascertaining, for each of the transported deposit bags, the respective identified amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the respective deposit ticked contained in the respective transported deposit bag;

counting, at the cash processing facility, the collected cash contained in each of the transported deposit bags to produce respective counted amounts of cash; and

verifying, by the cash processing facility, that each of the ascertained identified amounts of collected cash correspond to the respective counted amount of collected cash.

22. The process of claim 21, further comprising a step of providing the retailer with a credit corresponding to a total of all of the amounts of the collected cash of all of the stores of the retailer.

23. The process of claim 21, further comprising a step of tracking statuses of all of the deposit bags, a status of a respective deposit bag being at least a function of a location of the deposit bag.

24. The process of claim 23, wherein the status of each of the deposit bags includes identifying if a deposit ticket was created for the respective deposit bag but the respective deposit bag is still located at the respective store of the retailer.

25. The process of claim 23, wherein the status of each of the deposit bags also is a function of whether the verifying step has been carried out for the respective deposit bag.

26. The process of claim 21, wherein the identifying step is carried out by accessing by the respective manager at each the stores of the retailer a predetermined webpage of the cash processing facility and identifying within the predetermined webpage the respective amounts of cash collected at the respective store, each said respective manager accessing the same predetermined webpage.

27. The process of claim 26, wherein both the identifying and creating of a deposit ticket steps carried out at each of the stores of the retailer are carried out on respective electronic devices disposed at the stores without specialized software installed on the respective electronic devices designed to implement the identifying and creating of a deposit ticket steps.

35. The process of claim 21, comprising arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit by a financial institute in an amount corresponding to each of the amounts of the collected cash.

36. The process of claim 35, wherein the step of arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out upon the cash processing facility verifying that each of the ascertained identified amounts of collected cash correspond to the respective counted amount of collected cash.

37. The process of claim 35, wherein the step of arranging, by the cash processing facility, for the retailer to be provided with a credit is carried out for a respective amount of collected cash when one of the deposit tickets is created for a respective store of the retailer.

28. A system for facilitating cash collection deposits, comprising:

an electronic device disposed at a retailer location for receiving from a retailer an amount of cash collected by the retailer, the electronic device creating a deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith, the unique identification code being associated with the amount of collected cash;

a deposit bag for receiving the deposit ticket and the collected cash; and

a cash processing facility for receiving the deposit bag and for ascertaining the amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the deposit ticked contained in the deposit bag, the cash processing facility counting the collected cash contained in the deposit bag to produce a counted amount of cash, verifying that the ascertained amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash, and arranging for the retailer to be provided with a credit by a financial institute in an amount corresponding to the amount of the collected cash.

29. A system for facilitating cash collection deposits, comprising:

an electronic safe disposed at a retailer location for receiving cash collected by the retailer, the electronic safe identifying an amount of the collected cash, the identified amount including respective amounts of currency by denomination of the collected cash;

an electronic device disposed at a retailer location for receiving information identifying the amount of cash received by the electronic safe, the electronic device creating a deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith, the unique identification code being associated with the identified amount of collected cash;

a deposit bag for receiving the deposit ticket and the collected cash; and

a cash processing facility for receiving the deposit bag and for ascertaining the identified amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the deposit ticked contained in the deposit bag, the cash processing facility counting the collected cash contained in the deposit bag to produce a counted amount of cash, and verifying that the ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the counted amount of collected cash.

30. A system for facilitating cash collection deposits at a plurality of stores of a retailer, comprising:

a plurality of electronic devices, each of the electronic devices disposed at a respective one of the plurality of stores of the retailer, each of the electronic devices receiving from the respective retailer a respective amount of cash collected by the respective retailer and creating a respective deposit ticket having a unique identification code associated therewith and being associated with the respective amount of collected cash;

a plurality of deposit bags, each of the deposit bags receiving a respective deposit ticket and the collected cash collected by a respective one of the stores of the retailer; and

a cash processing facility for receiving the deposit bags and for ascertaining, for each of the deposit bags, the respective identified amount of collected cash associated with the unique identification code associated with the respective deposit ticked contained in the respective deposit bag, the cash processing facility counting the respective collected cash contained in the respective deposit bag to produce a respective counted amount of cash, and verifying that the respective ascertained identified amount of collected cash corresponds to the respective counted amount of collected cash.