bill breaker

[James2011]

How much is it necessary to break bill for customers?
Breaking bill either by machine or floating money is mandatory service?
If not, customer can understand it and prepare small bills? or they just go other mat?
anyone here who does not provide this service and no complaints?

[pressandclean]

It's funny, in all the discussion here about bill breakers, I have never heard anyone ask about changing all the pennies, nichols and dimes to quarters;)

[James2011]

It's funny, in all the discussion here about bill breakers, I have never heard anyone ask about changing all the pennies, nichols and dimes to quarters;)

I am talking about changing from $20 to 4 of $5 Bills, or 2 of $10 bills, IOW from large bill to small bills, not coin to coin.

[Duane]

I have a bill breaker and find it really is a customer convenience. Even if you are attended the breaker will keep the cash out of the attendants hands and makes the store more secure.

[CanCanCase]

I'm setting up my ATM to dispense $10 bills, and my bill breaker to accept $10 and $20 bills and dispense $5 bills. The current quarter machine is always jammed with $1 and $5 bills - that's what people are spending to do their wash. In my case, there's not much competition around, so if I can't make change (no attendant on duty, changer OOO, etc.) I've seen most folks go across the street to 7-11 and come back with change. I'd rather keep them in house by providing the service.

Also, my quarter machine gets raided every weekend by the drive-up espresso stands buying their change there when banks are closed. I don't imagine they'll need to buy too many $5 bills when we convert to the card system in a few weeks! ;-)

-Case

[Self_Suds_WV]

We are an 1100 sq ft mat with full time attendant, an ATM that dispenses only $10 bills and a change machine that accepts $1, $5, $10, $20. There are only two mats in town and the other mat has none of these items.

After reading your question I looked over the counts from our Change Machine for the last 30 days and here is what i found...

$20 5-10%
$10 25-30%
$5 10-15%
$1 55-60%

I give a range because the closer to the end of the month the more $1 and $10 bills I see.

My personal experience (I work 2, 7 hour shifts every two weeks) is that at least 5 times a shift a customer comes in and NEEDS quarters in exchange for smaller coins.

I see bill breaking and change making events as an opportunity to cross sale. "Do you need detergent, fabric softener, bleach or oxiclean for your wash today? (We sell all of these over the counter.)

What are you doing to differentiate yourself from your competition? Service isn't just wash dry fold.

[Adamski]

How much is it necessary to break bill for customers? Breaking bill either by machine or floating money is mandatory service? If not, customer can understand it and prepare small bills? or they just go other mat? ...

Harold,

All coin-operated laundromats should provide all the change their customers require. A reasonable and relatively easy method of converting all bills, loose coin and even checks to quarters or, in my case, dollar coins, just makes good business sense. We provide 3 changers that take ones, fives, tens and twenties and pay out dollar coins. The attendant takes fifties, hundreds, small checks and mixed change over the counter and provides dollar coins or fives and tens. The attendant will also buy back any dollar coins the customer has not used by the time she is ready to go home. Not all customers sell back their unused dollar coins, however; many just take them home.

[bodman]

It only takes one visit to my unattended mat's to figure out to bring smaller bills , if not they just go home with quarters, I do not see the need to spend 6,000 for a bill breaker., just one more machine to maintain.

[hiddenviewmat]

We tried to go without a Bill Breaker and without making change (security reasons i.e. theft and robbery), but customers kept asking (sometimes the same ones each time) and we felt that there was enough demand that we finally bought one. It is SO nice!! Expensive yes, but for us it seems worth it - our customers love it and so do we!

[Duane]

You can always buy a bill breaker that will break a $20 bill into 3 $5 bills and $5 worth of quarters. Then you have a backup to your other changers.

[James2011]

We tried to go without a Bill Breaker and without making change (security reasons i.e. theft and robbery), but customers kept asking (sometimes the same ones each time) and we felt that there was enough demand that we finally bought one. It is SO nice!! Expensive yes, but for us it seems worth it - our customers love it and so do we!

Hiddenview, I had same reason as you had, I worried about criminal target of my store and attendants, either robbery or burgary...
two years ago I bought bill break machine($4500), but after 6 months, it did some malfunctioning, not everyday, but sometimes, so it caused more headache to maintain and refund, with suspecting some(maybe few)customers...so, I decided to get rid of it, then the only choice was attendants handling bill exchange mannualy, I did this also around 6 months, and my employee told me it could be dangerous to keep money with them...
so, I stop this too, but still customers ask to break $20 into $5s...
That's why I am asking here, maybe my bill breaker was bad...I don't know
mine is made by American Changers, how about yours? no problem all the time?

[Duane]

What type of dispenser did your American Changer have? They where using the F50, but when dispensing $5 it could cause problems if you didn't take the time to straighten them and remove old bills. Their newer model has a different changer that is much better for bill breaking. The F50 is used in ATMs and work great with $20 bills that are not as worn.

[mmurra]

I avoided a bill breaker for almost 40 years. I must admit that I have paid for the machine many times over chasing shorts and mysterious disappearance of the change fund. Many times I prosecuted after extensive investigation, but, so what? Next new hire, same problem! My distributor strongly recommended a bill breaker with our recent equipment overhaul and conversion to the card system. We went for it (breaks $50-100's as well). Will someone please kick me for waiting so long? No more problems; no looking back!

[hiddenviewmat]

Mine is American Changer. Only one problem right in the begining - a screw was too tight causing it to error out and not give the cust. back their change (however it was easy to see how much the customer put in b/c of a screen on the front that tells how much they put in). Other than that, no real problems. We've had it for about 4 - 5 months.

A MARS validator is a must! Our Standard change machine has another brand validator and we are having a lot of trouble with it accepting bills.

Our bill changer also breaks 50s and 100s - have a lot of people with large bills. We were not willing to keep that much cash laying around to make change and have no other store in convienent proximity to make change for our customers.

I don't know how the previous owner went without a change machine. As much as our changers work, that must have been a full time job for the attendants. No wonder the place was filthy and the machines didn't work (and it got robbed a couple times)!