While retail focuses on digital innovation, omnichannel promotions, and consumer loyalty, a silent villain continues to bleed companies’ cash: poor cash management. It is estimated that Brazilian retail loses billions of reais each year due to failures, deviations, errors, and inefficiencies related to the physical flow of money.
According to the World Bank, over 38% of payments in Brazilian retail are still made in cash – a figure that rises to over 60% in peripheral regions and rural areas. Despite the rise of PIX and digital wallets, cash remains an operational reality for thousands of physical stores.
The Global Payments Report 2025 by WorldPay shows that in 2014, cash and cards accounted for 97% of purchases in retail Point of Sale (POS) physical stores, while digital payments represented only 3%. By 2024, digital payments accounted for 38%, while the use of cash and cards dropped to 62%. The projection for 2030 indicates that physical cash and cards will continue to be relevant, with a 47% share in physical POS.
The number of banknotes in circulation at the end of 2024 was 7.72 billion, the highest volume since 2020. In 2024, only 22% of purchases in Brazil were made in cash, while the rest were with cards, PIX, and other electronic means. However, although PIX has gained strength, cash still plays a significant part in the everyday economy – especially in physical retail segments.
In March 2025, the physical money in circulation reached R$ 349.2 billion, of which R$ 340 billion in banknotes and R$ 8.4 billion in coins, according to the Central Bank. “It is not the money itself that represents a risk, but how it is managed. Retail needs to treat cash with the same intelligence and automation applied to digital channels,” says Hailton Santos, commercial director at Sesami (www.sesami.io), a company that is a reference in effective and innovative solutions for security, productivity, and management in the retail, banking, and cash sectors.
International studies indicate that cash shrinkage — that is, losses related to handling and transporting cash — represent between 0.3% and 0.7% of the annual revenue of retail networks. In a company that generates R$ 1 billion, this could mean up to R$ 7 million in annual invisible losses to the manager.
The causes are diverse: human errors in counting and cash closing, lack of traceability by the operator, unsafe transportation of values between store and bank, and unproductive time of employees managing money manually.
Smart loss-free solutions – Sesami has technologies such as smart safes and recyclers that are changing the logic of physical retail. In an automated money management system, banknotes and coins are counted and validated automatically, generating a final report with all the values deposited throughout the day, the reconciliation process is optimized.
With the smart safe, the retailer ensures automatic cash counting, monitoring the cash volume, and can have integration with cash transport companies. It counts notes, rejects counterfeit bills, and issues reports with data on deposits, the smart safe optimizes team time and helps improve cash management.
Cash automation is already standard in large global retailers. In Brazil, major chains in the supermarket, fashion, and pharmacy sectors have already begun this transformation with Sesami — optimizing time, security, and financial performance. “Today, the minimum cost for a retailer to control cash in hand revolves around 20% (can reach 50%). We are talking about, for every R$ 100 they have, R$ 20 is spent to control it. These are costs related to treasury and cash transport, for example. These are high costs for an operation in a sector where margins are small,” says Santos.
Another safe and efficient way to handle cash and eliminate cash register discrepancies is the closed cash management cycle. It replaces the manual cash drawer of the cash register with a system that recycles and protects money, from the moment it leaves the customer’s hand until it reaches the counting center in the back office. The customer makes the payment directly on the device and receives their change, if any, automatically, in bills and/or coins. The treasury work will be the collection of the money stored at the end of the cash register’s day operation.
Benefits through software – All the benefits provided by Sesami’s cash drawers and recyclers are generated from the software developed by the company, the Sesami Enterprise Software, which allows for intelligent real-time operation management. With its modules, it enables business reporting and analysis, data sharing and connectivity, service monitoring and optimization, and end-to-end cash reconciliation.
