[Mamabear]

We have 200+ locations throughout the US and each location has their own bank account that they deposit their cash and checks for sales and for payment on accounts to on a daily basis. We have 3 major banks that we use (Bank of America, Regions, Wells Fargo) and approximately 20 sales centers that use small local banks. For reconciliation purposes it is great to have 3 major banks to deal with. We have a dedicated rep at each of those banks that answers our questions immediately and we have online reporting to assist with daily reconciliations. The 20 small banks are difficult to set up with signers in another state and they do not provide online reporting so we can only reconcile those banks once a month. We receive a lot of cash and with so many banks trying to implement online services for big business it is becoming difficult to deal with all of these banks and the lack of customer service options (drive thrus are closing and the teller staff is being reduced).

My question: do any of you work for national companies that operate in small towns and how do you maintain the cash without having to deal with so many small, local banks? We have approx 150 of our sales centers at one major bank but they are closing a lot of locations and dealing with all of these small local banks is a nightmare for our reconciliations and just for banking matters in general. Any suggestions?

CPA Exam - Finally DONE (November 2014)
BEC (08/10/13) 80
AUD (08/24/13) 65 (11/13/13) 85
FAR (04/12/14) 81
REG (07/19/14) 69 (11/29/14) 87!!

[Thrawn]

My company operates in severals states and about 30 countries. In general we have one provider globally and our treasury department funds cash needs from cash pools by currency. We use centralized AR and AP functions for the US so individual companies rarely need much operating cash. In-fact I don't think any of our companies actually have checks or issue payments directly anymore. Collections are typically by lockbox. A simplified version of it is that each local company has a zero balance cash account through the large provider, and when they have specific cash outlays that cash is swept into the company account from the corporate account after a request is made. Normal cash collections and vendor payments are paid centrally after approval from the local BU. Payroll is outsourced so a single payment is swept to the payroll processing company and then they handle the individual direct deposits and checks. Non-US gets more complicated but they try to keep things centalized by currency pools there.

Now, this might be less helpful if your local offices handle a lot of cash, we are a manufacturer, so we don't usually have sales where physical cash is involved.

BEC 87 Feb 14
REG 84 Apr 14
FAR 82 Nov 14
AUD 86 Feb 15

[Mamabear]

That is essentially what we do and Bank of America was our major bank, but they are closing a lot of locations and forcing us to open more local banks because we do handle a lot of cash. The cash is our main problem.

CPA Exam - Finally DONE (November 2014)
BEC (08/10/13) 80
AUD (08/24/13) 65 (11/13/13) 85
FAR (04/12/14) 81
REG (07/19/14) 69 (11/29/14) 87!!

[Author]

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