Why a till stops balancing
Most tills that never balance are not being robbed. They are losing track: a float nobody counted, a refund taken from the drawer and never written down, twenty paid to the window cleaner out of the till. By the end of the week there is a difference and no way to tell which day, which person, or which of those it was. There is a longer article on the usual causes.
Shifts in StoreWave exist to close that gap. Every movement of cash is recorded on the shift it happened in, so a difference shows up the same day, on the right drawer, with the likely reason already in front of you.
How a shift works
- Open with a counted float. At the start of the shift, the cashier counts the float and types it in. It is never carried forward from yesterday, because yesterday’s count is exactly what might be wrong.
- Sell as normal. Every sale, and every tender within a split payment, is recorded against the open shift on that register.
- Record the cash that moves for other reasons. Money paid in, money paid out for a delivery or a cleaner, and every time the drawer is opened without a sale. A pay-in or pay-out cannot be saved without a reason, so the answer to “where did that twenty go” is written down at the moment it happens.
- Close with a count. The cashier counts the drawer and enters what is there for each way of paying. StoreWave shows the expected amount beside the counted amount and the difference for each one.
With shifts on, the till will not ring up a sale until a shift is open on that register, so there is no stretch of trading that belongs to no one.
X reports and Z reports
At any point during the shift, an X report shows what has been taken and what the drawer should hold. It is useful for a mid-afternoon check or a handover, and it changes nothing.
When the shift closes, the Z report records the opening float, the expected and counted amount for each way of paying, every pay-in and pay-out with its reason, and whether the drawer is short, over or balanced. It prints on your receipt printer, sized to tape into a cash book. A Z report is a snapshot: if a sale from that shift is voided tomorrow, today’s Z report still says what was in the drawer when it was counted.
Refunds come out of today’s drawer
A refund given on Tuesday for a sale made on Saturday comes out of Tuesday’s drawer, so it is recorded on Tuesday’s shift. That sounds obvious, but many systems attach the refund to the original sale, and Tuesday’s till then comes up short for no visible reason.
Blind close
Turn on blind close and the person counting the drawer does not see the expected amount until the count is in. A count that is made to match the expected figure is the most common way a real shortfall vanishes from the record. Blind close stops that without accusing anyone.
Who can do what
Cashiers can open and close their own shift and see their own drawer. Seeing the expected figures mid-shift, closing someone else’s shift, and setting up registers are separate permissions you give to managers. Like every permission in StoreWave, you decide who holds them.
For card payments
Enter the card total from your terminal’s end-of-day report as the counted amount for card, and the Z report tells you straight away whether every card payment taken made it onto the till.