Most companies want finance employees who are precise, but this business is saying goodbye to exactness.

Nova Scotia’s Just Us! Coffee Roaster Co-op Cafe has an interesting financial rule in effect: “No pennies.” After a bill which suggested abolishing the penny was introduced in Parliament in April, a Halifax branch of the cafe decided to adopt the practice.

“It became clear to us that the amount of time we spend taking care of pennies wasn’t valuable in the long run,” said supervisor Ned Zimmerman. The cafe now uses a rounding system for customers who pay with cash. Depending on what an item rings up as, either the customer or the cafe shells out the extra cents to round the total to the nearest five cents. (Credit and debit card purchases don’t physically involve pennies, so they’re not rounded.)

“At the end of the day, our cash is rarely off by very much,” said Zimmerman.

A recent study by the Desjardins Group, a Quebec finance company, estimated that keeping the penny in circulation costs the country $130 million annually.

Parliament Member Pat Martin, who introduced the penny-eliminating bill, thinks the government should stop production of the penny at the end of 2008, which happens to be the coin’s 100th anniversary.

Tags: Credit card, Debit card, Invoices, Parliament, Purchases