Nestled in the Pyrenees mountains in northern Spain is the town of Luzaide/Valcarlos. Here travelers on the famous Camino de Santiago trail stop and shop along with visitors from France, and locals at BIOK Valcarlos.

The supermarket offers more than 9.000 square meters of groceries, various other goods, a cafe and a petrol station. Many of the store’s customers cross the French border to purchase Spanish products sold at less expensive local prices.

The Challenge

Also among those traveling to BIOK are the majority of their 130 employees who do not live in Valcarlos. They instead travel to and from nearby towns every day on buses arranged by the supermarket. The buses depart on schedule promptly when the store opens and closes. The buses don’t wait the time it takes for someone to count the store’s cash, often one and a half to two hours. Those operational processes traditionally had to wait to take place during the hours the store was open.

This resulted in the day’s money from 30 cash points sitting in a safe in the back office until a manager arrived to count it, sometimes 24 to 48 hours later. This created many problems since the idle cash could not be used to create opening till floats until it was counted, amounts verified and balancing was complete. Any balancing discrepancies or shortages were discovered too late for proper reconciliation. It was a process with many loss prevention challenges.

The Solution

To address and remedy the problems being created in their back office, BIOK turned to the experts at Madrid-based Mecaban and Arca. Mecaban provides Arca cash automation solutions and services in Spain.

After a thorough analysis it was determined that an automated solution would allow the back office manager to arrive at the store together with the other cashiers, not hours earlier, and to close the day quickly and improve the overall cash flow of the supermarket.

The Arca system combines the CM18 cash recycler and the CC3R coin recycler, both operated with the software Arca Control and data tracking software Quireo.

“The system and the machine work very well. We are very happy.”

Noema, Sales Manager, BIOK Valcarlos

The Results

“The system and the machine work very well,” says Noema, Sales Manager at BIOK Valcarlos. “We are very happy. It saves a lot of time.” The Arca solution has cut the time the manager spends processing cash in the back office in half.

It also created more streamlined accounting processes, adding capabilities to document and track the cash from each till, cashier and department within the supermarket. The results have been so significant that BIOK has decided to deploy the system to all its current and future locations.