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0 pointsjrochkind14mo ago0 comments

A noticeable number of places around me in an urban area in the USA already now have signs up saying they won't make any coin change at all! Pay with a card, or exact change, or they'll round up to the dollar keep the difference.

Sometimes the sign says "due to the penny shortage" and has been up for a year or whatever, I dunno. But they aren't just not giving you pennies in your change, they are refusing any coins in your change. I am curious as to the motivation, I could guess but it's not obvious to me. They will still take coins as payment, just not give them as change.

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jjmarr4mo ago

You can either put payments into the register or the safe.

If it goes into the safe, it's nearly impossible to steal because there's a time lock preventing the cashier from accessing it. But you can't make change.

This means you have a optimization problem to have the minimum possible cash in the register to meet all change needs.

Eliminating denominations makes the optimization problem easier, if nothing else.

jrochkind1OP4mo ago

I wouldn't think there is enough coinage in a register to be interesting as a theft target, but i don't know! I think they would still make bill change, but maybe I misunderstood, sure. Next time I see one I'll use cash to find out!

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