Every small shop faces the same question at closing time: the till is counted, the bank is shut, and there is money in an envelope. Where does it spend the night?
Option one: nothing stays overnight
The safest money is money that is not there. If the shop can pay in every day, or the cash taken is small, an empty till left open overnight, so anyone looking in can see there is nothing in it, is a perfectly good policy. It also saves a broken till drawer.
Option two: a deposit safe
A deposit safe has a slot or a drawer that lets staff drop envelopes in without being able to open it. Only the owner, or whoever holds the code, can take money out. It suits shops where several people close up, because nobody has to be trusted with the code, and if a member of staff leaves, nothing needs changing.
It must be heavy and bolted down, and it should not be visible from the street.
Option three: a hidden safe
A smaller safe set in the back room, a cupboard or the floor, known to as few people as possible. Its strength is that a thief who does not find it cannot attack it. Its weakness is that everyone who knows where it is, and everyone who knows the code, is part of its security.
Fixing it so it stays
Whichever you choose, the safe is bolted through its base into the floor slab, or through its back into a solid wall. In buildings from the 1960s and 70s, a third of what stands in Novelda, many interior walls are thin brick that will not hold one. A safe that is only standing on the floor is a box with a handle.
The code
Change it whenever anyone who knew it leaves. Avoid dates anybody could guess. Keep the emergency key, if the safe has one, somewhere other than the shop.
Related
Shops and offices on the estates have stone dust to deal with as well; see the note on marble dust in yard locks. Travellers who stop off the motorway can read what to do if the car is locked off the A-31. And for safes that will not open, or new ones to fit, see safe opening in Novelda.