We too have a buddy system, with two (or more) people present at all times. However, when this theft occured, she was with a "buddy" but that other individual was helping students, straightening books, etc.... Although writing down purchases is a good idea, what is the guarantee that every sale gets written down? As I said, we run this at all three schools the same week, and maybe that is something we should not do, as dealing with three schools an officer simply can not be present all the time, so you rely on parent volunteers. A cash register is a good idea, but we would have to purchase three (unless we had one book fair at a time). We do not take cash profit from the book fair. I guess there is not complete way to make sure everyone is being honest, I was just looking for suggestions / ideas of what other groups are doing. Also to warn everyone that although you have a buddy system, etc in place, things happen. It has been very upsetting to have this woman arrested and now going through the court process, as this is someone I personally trusted as I have been the chair for the book fairs for many years. We do have a cash box count down at the end of each 2 hour shift, and that money (counted by the individuals working the shift) is taken to the office and locked up until the total deposit is made for that day. We thought by having that in place, it would prevent this kind of thing, but it didnt. I am just glad we had the cameras in place.
last year at our last book fair we implemented a new idea to track this also. We only allow a board member or chair to run the register and we try really hard to make it only one or two people during the whole fair. We track all sales either by our register or by having an extra person in line writing down the amount of each sale. At the end of every night we do a total with 2 people present at least. We also do not open the cash for the next day unless 2 people are present.
The only way we could make sure parents and teachers alike could trust what was happeing was doing a budy system with the money.
Our librarian purchased a cash register from her book fair vouchers one year. It is programmed for the tax and I can run a sales report on it. No one in the schools except myself and the librarian even know that Scholastic doesn't inventory books before and after we get them. They think they are accountable and it definitely prevents sticky fingers on cash and merchandise. It allows encourages them to keep a sharper eye on the customers. I have 30+ volunteers at one school and a dozen at our smaller one. I can't be two places at one time, so I have to have safeguards in place.
I guess we are trusting as well I gather up the money at the end of the day and just leave the change for the next day in there. Trusting no money was taken from the cash drawer. I guess since all the profits are taken in books and the PTO gets no money the volunteers just do not think about it I just do not have an answer for that but need to get some procedure in place since our holiday gift shop starts next monday.
Can anyone share their book fair procedures? We have been having 2 book fairs a year for many years. These are run by our volunteers. Our parent group takes care of three schools so the book fair runs the same week at all three. It works out well and since we have a K-1 building, 2-3 building and 4th-8th grade building, usually the volunteers we get to work the book fair during the week are parents of those students in that particular building.
We had a problem with a parent volunteer and in the end she was arrested, as we had her on camera stealing from the cash box during her shift working the book fair.
We are concerned with how to track sales during a shift. Would anyone be willing to share the "procedures" you have in place during a book fair week?
