We are trying to find a good efficient method of counting night deposits. On some days, the volume of bags is so heavy that the tellers can't count them all before opening. We assign 2 employees to each bag we count and our agreement with the customer says 2 employees will witness the counts. Has anyone found an efficient method of counting night deposits without compromising controls? Thanks!

In our experience, we would have 2 employees working the night drop bags until the lobby opened. Then once the lobby opened, the bags were still worked under dual control however only when customers were not present. Many years ago when I worked at a commercial bank, we had PT staff that worked early mornings so that all bags would be worked in an efficient manner and maintain dual control. Does your volume support additional staff? What time does your exisiting staff arrive to work the night drop? When I worked with the PT staff we would arrive at 7am to start night drop before the lobby opened at 9 am. We were able to process a majority of the bags before waiting on customers.

Some of the bigger banks in the area are counting night deposits under single control. I obtained one of the night deposit agreements and the agreement says that the client agrees that any one bank employee may open and work the bags. I've never seen that before. I guess that's how they achieve efficiency. I don't know whether our management will go for that but that would definitely create efficiency.

For high volume days, some banks have armored car pick up take the deposits to a central vault area for processing. I've also seen processing where a camera was the second control rather than another employee.