Bureau or not to Bureau?

dccarm

I work in a large city centre bar, and we are having a debate as to whether or not we should create a Bureau de Change in the bar for the first few days in the New Year. If we do create one then we will only accept Euro at the bar and anyone wanting a drink will have to changer there money first. My main concern is that we will simply give away all our Euro float in the first day or two when we cannot receive any more for over a week.

The alternative is to accept both currencies at the bar/cloakroom etc., but then it becomes much more complicated for staff, and I don't know if this will lead to even more Euro float walking out the door as people might pay time and time again with their old Irish notes whereas with the Bureau we could at least impose a limit of say £40 or £50 per person.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas I'd love to hear them.

billy the squid

Well the beaurou the change idea is a good one i think the likes of tescos and dunnes are thinking of doing the same.

BUT when people are buying their drinks wont they be giving you back your euros granted you will nead a whole heap of coins but you can stockpile them now over the next two weeks.

as for putting a limit of €40 per person i dont think that will go down too well seeing as people will be going to pubs in groups during the first few days of the new year and will be hoping to spend sevent and eighty euros

Bard

Originally posted by dccarm
If we do create one then we will only accept Euro at the bar and anyone wanting a drink will have to changer there money first.

Actually, I don't believe you CAN do that.

Between January 1st and February 9th, BOTH currencies are legal tender and MUST legally be accepted by Irish retailers in all transactions. Therefore, if someone comes to the bar and wants to pay you in a mixture of pounds and euros you MUST accept that.

I work in a bar too. For that first month of 2002, we will have one extra till tray in the bar. It will be a dual-currency till tray and it will be used simply to change pounds to Euros AFTER the customer has handed over the cash to pay for the drink.

i.e.: Lets say a pint of Guinness costs €2.80 [IR£2.20] (which it will/does in our pub).

Mr. Punter comes to the bar and wants apint. He hands over a fifty cent piece, two Irish fifty-pence pieces, one euro coin, and 3 cents.

Now our barman MUST accept that... the barman goes to the dual-currency till tray, calculates what the Irish coins are worth in euros and uses that till to swap the Irish coins with the equivalent in euros... that being €1.27. This €1.27 and the €1.53 he already has are then rung in to one of the regular (Euro ONLY) tills.

The exchange is done by the barman after the transaction is made. While the transaction itself involves both Irish and Euro coins only Euros are rung into the till.

This is the way it HAS to be done actually , because during the introductory period between Jan 1st and Feb 9th, ALL CONSUMERS are legally entitled to pay in a retail outlet (INCLUDING a pub) using either Irish money, Euros, or even a mixture of both currencies if they so wish. Disallowing a customer from doing so will more-than-likely be unlawful.

So if I was you I'd rethink 'only accepting Euros at the bar'. It *MAY* be the easy solution (especially at busy times), but you may not be legally allowed to do it. A lot of bars are just grinning and bearing it and realising that they'll just possibly either need extra staff on to handle the conversion or just have to put up with some delays.

dccarm

That sounds like an incredibly complicated way of doing things. And I did say we are a very busy pub. The staff would not be able to cope. And since the buses are refusing to accept mixed currencies, I don't see why anybody else should. I am not suggesting that we refuse to accept Irish pounds on the premises, what I am saying is that we warn customers at the door that they have to change their pounds before going to the bar. I'm sure if emphasise the convenience arising for both staff and customers they will understand.
Your point about us receiving back the coin we give out is, I believe, misconceived. How many nights do you go out on the beer without returning home with a huge pocketful of change? I know most women use coin at the bar, but men are more inclined to use the notes first. We are going to be watching huge amounts of euro coin walking back out the door, and we have to minimize this where possible.

Victor

Well some shops are having some "Euro Only" tills and some "Irish Pounds and Euro" tills , I think this gets around it for shops. This is not so easy with pubs, what with drunks and noise and the like.

Procedure for accepting Irish Pounds after 1 January:

Ring up amount in Euro as explained above by Bard.
1. Put Euro notes and coin in standard slots of till.
2. Keep one slot in till for €100, €500 and Irish notes (all of these should be regularly skimmed).
3. Put Irish coins in a bucket or similar container.
4. Ensure there isn't an excessive difference between the till roll and the amoutn of money at the end of the night. Where each staff member has there own till, this will help identify people who are having difficulty with 2 currencies (or those lining their own pockets). Where tills are shared this type of control becomes difficult.

Regarding change, I suggest if you normally keep 3 days worth of change in the pub, increase that to 7-14 days worth and review demand on a daily basis.

And yes you will need extra staff for those 5 weeks. In particular people to regularly skims the tills of large notes and Irish Pounds. On very busy nights, this means having someone dedicated to skimming the tills This has been pointed out for the last 2 years.

If you run a "Bureau de Change" do not call it that - you open yourself up to all sorts of arguments with (drunk) customers - do you accept Francs, Sterling, Dollars. You also don't have a licence to do it (available from the Central Bank). If you do operate a 'de facto' change office, you are probably only inviting people to use you like a bank and get rid of all their Irish Pounds (and use up all your change). However, you could present it as a focal point for customers to familiarise them and self-advertise (say push promotions for people who use the change office and/or pay only in Euro).

I don't know if dccarm is staff or managment, but whichever, you need to emphasise to everyone how important it is to get things right. Do some roleplaying among the staff during quiet times.

Victor

Originally posted by Bard
i.e.: Lets say a pint of Guinness costs €2.80 [IR£2.20] (which it will/does in our pub).

Isn't IR£2.20 = €2.79 (€2.7934237725....).

So the rip off starts. I'm ashamed at you Bard

BTW, such pricing (rounding up) is against the rules and is de facto FRAUD.

There is of course no problem with charging less in Euros.

dccarm

Some interesting points, but I fear you are all getting carried away with concerns over legality and proper procedure, when I am more concerned with ensuring we have enough coin to get us through to the following week when the bank have told us we (might ) be able to get some more. I would like to see it done properly, but that has to be after we ensure that we can continue to trade. I think though I have left all this a bit too late, as there isn't really much time left for staff training and the like. The 1st of January should be a laugh!

sceptre

Supposedly you can give change only in euro after Jan 1 (correct me if I'm wrong)

So I think the primary thing you have to try and do is cover that first and foremost. After a few days people will basically switch to euro for almost everything in any case because it's simpler for them. So if you want to accept currency in just either one or the other (as in only euro or pounds but not both in the same transaction) I think that's perfectly all right, to prevent your staff getting confused and avoid any problems.

Blade

Originally posted by dccarm
Some interesting points, but I fear you are all getting carried away with concerns over legality and proper procedure, when I am more concerned with ensuring we have enough coin to get us through to the following week when the bank have told us we (might ) be able to get some more. I would like to see it done properly, but that has to be after we ensure that we can continue to trade. I think though I have left all this a bit too late, as there isn't really much time left for staff training and the like. The 1st of January should be a laugh!

I agree with you 100% that people are getting carried away with so called 'legalities' over the whole thing, I don't think any of these rules are in fact law and even if they were Scr3w what their telling you to do because their not the ones on the front line going through all the hassle, we are! They haven't exactly done everything perfect themselves for this change-over, Euro starter packs ran out in all our local banks on day 1 and they still haven't got them back in, most of my friends haven't even seen a Euro yet and change for retailers as you said yourself is going to be a b@stard to get.

I think people are just getting stressed over the whole thing like Y2K but really there wouldn't be a problem is retailers were let do things their own way, because every business is different and what suites one wouldn't suite another, for example your pub situation were 1 customer would probably make 7 or 8 transactions in the one night, why change their money 7 or 8 times when you can just do it the once at the beginning of the night like you say, thats what my local is doing and their not even that busy, plus it ilimitates this cr@p of having to accept mixed currencies in a single transaction. In my retail business however each customer makes only 1 transaction when they come in so we will probably just do it the text book way depending on how things work out with my staff and tills etc. but if it doesn't then we'll be changing customers money first whether anyone likes it or not.

It takes long enough as it is to get a drink in a busy pub and if Bard's place is anyway busy then I pity the poor b@stards waiting to get served on a Saturday night. Personally I'll only be going to places thats doing things your way dccarm, because I don't see why everyone should suffer rediculous delays for the sake of some 'rule' handed down to us from above.

Anyway jazz it up like Victor said, try make it a fun thing, call it ' Euro De Change ' (you can credit me with a few pints on that one) People will be handing in big Irish notes to change and your counter staff will know the amounts to give out off the top of their heads, so there won't be much delays. However your coin problem won't go away, your just going to have to get a lot more of a float in, you should be getting that now from the bank, we're actually even getting notes in today (after signing a form that we won't release them till jan)