After the last post dealing with a customer paying her entire $493 water bill in pennies as a “peaceful protest”, where I advocated for having a loose coin policy, a few readers inquired as to what a loose coin policy should entail.
Loose coin policy
At the very least, any loose coin policy should require that coins exceeding the amount required for a coin roll of that denomination be rolled. Standard coin roll denominations are:
- pennies – $0.50
- nickels – $2.00
- dimes – $5.00
- quarters – $10.00
- half dollars – $10.00
It is also advisable to require your customer to write their name and phone number on each roll of coins in case there is a discrepancy in the amount of coins in the wrapper.
Obviously, you can use some discretion in enforcing the policy. If a customer showed up with 52 pennies to pay the exact change portion of their bill, it doesn’t make sense to require them to roll 50 of the pennies.
Benefits of a policy
With a loose coin policy in place, your office would be able to refuse to accept a wagon load of coins from an irate customer, such as the protest in the above story, unless the customer first wrapped the loose coins. This would save considerable time in counting the coins when they are presented for payment.
