How to cash up a till at the end of the day

Cashing up is the ten minutes at the end of the day when you find out whether the till is right. Done properly, it catches a mistake while everyone still remembers the afternoon it happened. Done loosely, it produces a number nobody trusts, and a week later there is no way to tell which day went wrong.

Here is a routine that works for one till or several. It assumes nothing more than a drawer, a card terminal and ten quiet minutes.

Before you start

• Stop selling on that till. Counting a drawer that is still taking money is how counts go wrong. If the shop is still open, move customers to another till or close the one you are counting.
• Count somewhere private, away from the front window and the door.
• Have a count sheet ready, a printed one or a page in a notebook, with a line for each note and coin.

Step 1: take out the float first

The float is the change you started the day with, and it is not takings. Count it out first, by denomination, and put it aside for tomorrow. If your float is 100, count out exactly 100 in a sensible mix of small notes and coins.

Never carry the float forward on trust. If yesterday’s closer left it at 95, today’s count is out by five before you have started. The float should be counted at the start of the day and again at the end.

Step 2: count the takings by denomination

Count what is left, one denomination at a time, and write each one down:

• Notes first, largest to smallest. Face them all the same way; it makes a miscount obvious.
• Then coins, again largest to smallest. Coin bags or a coin tray help once you have more than a handful.
• Add up the lines on the sheet, not in your head.

If you can, count twice, or have a second person count after you without seeing your figure. Two counts that agree are worth far more than one careful one.

Step 3: gather everything that is not cash

Some things in the drawer or on the till are not cash but belong in the cash-up:

• Card terminal end-of-day total. Run the terminal’s end-of-day or batch report and note the total.
• Paid-out slips. Receipts for cash taken out during the day, such as a delivery paid in cash or milk for the staff room.
• Vouchers or cheques, if you take them.

A paid-out without a slip is the single most common reason a drawer is short. If money leaves the till for a legitimate reason, write it down at that moment, every time.

Step 4: compare to what the till says

Now print or open the till’s end-of-day report, usually called a Z report (there is a full explanation of X and Z reports if the terms are new). Compare, one method at a time:

• Cash: counted takings against expected cash, allowing for paid-outs and pay-ins.
• Card: the terminal’s total against the till’s card total.
• Anything else: store credit, vouchers.

Write the difference for each on the sheet, even if it is zero.

Step 5: record the difference, do not fix it

This is the step people skip. If the drawer is two short, write down two short. Do not take two from your pocket, and do not “round” the count. A cash-up that always balances perfectly is almost always a cash-up that is being adjusted, and it hides the one day that matters.

Small differences in both directions over a week are normal: change given wrongly under pressure. The patterns worth chasing are:

• Always short, or short by the same amount every day.
• Short on one person’s shifts.
• A card difference of any size, which usually means a payment was keyed on the terminal and never recorded on the till, or the other way round.

There is a longer guide to reading these patterns in why your till never balances.

Step 6: bag it, sign it, store it

• Put the takings in a bag or envelope with the count sheet, and write the date and total on the outside.
• Sign the count sheet or the Z report. If two people counted, both sign.
• Put it in the safe or take it to the bank. Do not leave takings in the till drawer overnight, even locked.
• File the Z report and count sheet together. You will want them at tax time, and on the day something does not add up.

Make it the same every day

The routine only works if it is boring. Same time, same order, same sheet, every day, whoever is closing. Put the steps on a card taped inside the drawer for the first few weeks. After a month, a difference will stand out on its own because every other day looks the same.

Where StoreWave sits

StoreWave builds this routine into the till. Each register opens a shift with a counted float, which is never carried forward from the previous day. Cash paid in or out and every drawer opened without a sale are recorded during the shift, and a pay-in or pay-out cannot be saved without a reason, so the missing slip in step 3 stops being possible.

Closing the shift asks for a count for each payment method and shows the expected amount, the counted amount and the difference for each, then produces a Z report that prints on a receipt printer. With blind close on, whoever is counting enters their figures before seeing what the drawer should hold. There is more on shifts and cash-up.