SMEs dealing with ‘conflicting messages’ on cash payments, says IPA
The government’s cash mandate may see businesses that previously made the switch to digital only payments hit with additional costs, the IPA says.
A move to mandate that businesses must accept cash when selling essential items conflicts with previous calls for small business to move to digital payments, according to the Institute of Public Accountants, general manager of technical policy, Tony Greco.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers released a consultation paper on the proposed cash acceptance mandate last month.
Greco said while there are circumstances where cash does become necessary such as during outages, this push from the government also conflicts with previous messaging received by smaller businesses to move to digital payments.
“We have been encouraged to move into digital world from all sources including the government. Small business has to some extent begrudgingly been forced or encouraged to adopt digital way of doing things including interacting with government agencies,” he said.
Covid also accelerated the community’s acceptance of digital options as the primary form of communications and payment systems, he added.
“We’ve been telling small business that digital is the future and some of them who are now digital only now have to go back to providing cash,” he said.
“We’re seeing lots of conflicting messages around this.”
Greco said while the government’s decision to mandate cash goes against current trends, it was understandable on the basis of protecting vulnerable consumers and in instances of intendent or software outages.
However, he warned that in some cases it would increase costs for businesses, particularly those that had previously switched to digital payments.
MTC.
