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I think you would be surprised at how little cash many places need to operate with in the presence of credit cards. Consider a front desk at a hotel. Thousands

I think you would be surprised at how little cash many places need to operate with in the presence of credit cards. Consider a front desk at a hotel. Thousands of dollars a day in transactions occur via card, which would warrant frequent drops into an expensive safe if they happened with cash. With cards they pretty much only hold a trivial amount to deal with sundries that isn't worth protecting beyond a simple envelope to a back-office. Credit cards dominate many industries in the US to a point where cash management is now trivial because the daily amounts aren't worth any employee losing their job over or a criminal risking robbery punishment for.

oasisbob 8y ago
That hotel is still doing cash accounting though. If there isn't much at the front desk, how about the bar? The restaurant? A business that has any type of daily cash accounting is still going to need to balance the register at the end of the day, reestablish change to open with, have arrangements for transport, &c. Bad employees can still pocket a tenner on occasion. Sure, some smaller places with barely any cash probably just lock the drawer and call it a night. I can't find the figures now, but estimates of cost of cash handling is far far lower than the 2-3% of swipe fees.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  > That hotel is still doing cash accounting though. If there isn't much at the front desk, how about the bar? The restaurant? Many hotels have neither of these.
  - astura 8y ago
    And sometimes they are totally independent businesses just renting the space. A friend of mine owns a Holiday Inn restaurant.
  - myrandomcomment 8y ago
    Do not know where you are staying but I have not seen a hotel without a bar in a very long time. That is if the hotel is chain hotel (not motel). To the original point, if I am staying in the hotel and I go to the bar I would just sign to the room and not pay cash.

oasisbob 8y ago

That hotel is still doing cash accounting though. If there isn't much at the front desk, how about the bar? The restaurant? A business that has any type of daily cash accounting is still going to need to balance the register at the end of the day, reestablish change to open with, have arrangements for transport, &c. Bad employees can still pocket a tenner on occasion. Sure, some smaller places with barely any cash probably just lock the drawer and call it a night. I can't find the figures now, but estimates of cost of cash handling is far far lower than the 2-3% of swipe fees.

pathseeker 8y ago
> That hotel is still doing cash accounting though. If there isn't much at the front desk, how about the bar? The restaurant? Many hotels have neither of these.
- astura 8y ago
  And sometimes they are totally independent businesses just renting the space. A friend of mine owns a Holiday Inn restaurant.
- myrandomcomment 8y ago
  Do not know where you are staying but I have not seen a hotel without a bar in a very long time. That is if the hotel is chain hotel (not motel). To the original point, if I am staying in the hotel and I go to the bar I would just sign to the room and not pay cash.