Post Office daily cash balancing if any?

[wbbs]

Kind of long story but does anyone know post office procedures on daily cash balancing relating to social welfare payments or do they do it at all, I would have thought it would be similar to bank daily balancing.

Reason I am trying to find out is my father, who is elderly, collects his pension weekly in cash in post office. He switched to Airtricity maybe 18mts ago and the electricity allowance is not paid directly to them as it used to be with ESB, this caused a bit of a mess for first few months but then I got him plastic card from Airtricity and he just hands that into post office every month when extra payment is in his pension for electricity and the staff member credited the extra money to Airtricity. The staff member was familiar with this system and used to ask him for the card each time as she would have seen that his payment was higher that particular week so knew he was to lodge to Airtricty. Anyway he said to me last week that he felt he had not been asked for the card in ages and had the system changed, I logged on to his Airtricity account and saw there was no payment in Jan or Feb. He is fairly adamant that he did not receive the extra €40 approx any week with his pension as he would have known he was getting too much and would have queried it. The staff member he normally dealt with has left and is replaced by the owner, when he queried it with him, he knew nothing about the Airtricity card system (fair enough, he cant know everything!) but instead asked my father where the extra money was coming from each month anyway. My father was then a bit confused as he thought they would be familiar with people getting these payments but apparently not.

Anyway to get to the end, I suggested my father ask in the post office if they had a cash surplus on either of the days in Jan & Feb when he collected the increased pension, he feels he did not get the extra money in cash and it was not lodged either so I presumed coming from a banking background that if there was cash not paid out or lodged there might be a surplus on the day that they had not traced. However the post office say they do not balance but just send back whatever money is left from what they got after paying out all social welfare due. Anyway know is this correct?

 

[ladybird]

Hi,

I don't know if p.o. balance their "tills" at the end of the day BUT i imagine every cashier has to balance up or else who is accountable?

I would ring a Main p.o. about this and get answers. The manager asking where your dad got the electricity money is inappropriate in the extreme. Your dad is entitled to the household benefits package and it is paid once a month. None of manager's business though.

It is probably too late to sort it as your dad isn't sure, time has passed etc BUT do complain to Head Office and make local manger aware of this.

With elderly people it really is important that that they rely on themselves and not a "person who knows". Your dad held a job for years and reared you, he should be able to wait for a bill from airtricity and pay it when it comes in. At home, have him do a few envelopes for various bills and get in the habit of putting his own money away for bills every week - himself. (I apologise if he has dementia problems but that would mean a whole different set of rules).

This way no one can take advantage of him, intentionally or accidently, and he gets to keep his independence longer - it's the old rule with the brain, "use it or lose it".

I don't mean to lecture but we have gone through it and people not knowing how much they get, whether they got it or if they were "done" can cause terrible problems down the line.

Hope it all works out.

 

[wbbs]

Thanks for your reply, I intend following up with main post office, just wanted to see if anyone could throw any light on the subject.

Airtricity bills are online so he has no access to them, he pays none of his bills, I look after all the finances. Yes he had a job etc for years but was dreadful with money even then, he has no interest in learning about it at this stage

 

[ladybird]

Sorry, didn't know Airtricity bills only online.

As for the "no interest" - poor you - i've been there

Hope someone who works in the p.o. answers you soon!

All the Best.