Cashing Up at the Till
What a drawer session counts, what it quietly does not, and the four ways the figure comes out wrong.
Every sale rung up at the till belongs to a drawer session: opened by a member of staff when they start, closed when they finish, with the cash counted at both ends. The session is what tells you at the end of the day whether the money in the drawer matches the money taken.
Sessions are per person, not per till. Two people serving from the same physical drawer have two sessions open, each counting only its own sales, and neither figure will match what is in the drawer. If a drawer is shared, one person opens the session and takes the payments on it.
Opening
You enter the float, the cash already in the drawer before anything is sold. That number is the baseline for everything that follows, so a float entered from memory rather than counted is a discrepancy you have created before serving anybody.
An Unclosed Session Is Closed For You, Badly
You can only have one session open. If yesterday's was never closed, opening today's closes it automatically with its closing balance set to the float it started with. The till then reports a shortfall for yesterday of exactly the cash that was taken, because as far as the record goes, nothing came in and nothing was counted. Nothing warns you. Close the session before you walk away, every time.
What Gets Counted Where
Each payment lands in one of three buckets as it is taken.
| Taken as | Counted as |
|---|---|
| Cash | Cash sales |
| Card, or a Stripe or Square terminal | Card sales |
| Anything else | Manual sales |
Only cash sales affect what should be in the drawer. The expected figure is the float plus cash sales, and nothing else.
A Refund Does Not Come Out of the Drawer Figure
The till cannot take a refund. You do that from the order in the admin, and when you do, the session knows nothing about it. Hand a customer cash back and the drawer is short by that amount against an expected figure that never moved. The same is true of a till float topped up or robbed for change during the day. If either happens, write it in the session notes, because the figures will not explain themselves later.
Closing
Count the drawer and enter what is actually there. You are shown three numbers once: what was expected, what you entered, and the difference between them.
Read that message before you dismiss it. It is the only time those figures are presented to you.
The Closing Figures Are Not Kept Anywhere You Can Look
Sessions are recorded, but nothing in the admin lists them. There is no cashing-up report, no history of discrepancies, and no way to go back and see what last Tuesday closed at. If you need a record, write the three numbers down as you close, or photograph the message. This is a gap rather than a setting you have missed.
Entering Zero Reports No Discrepancy
If the drawer is emptied to the safe before closing and you enter zero, you are told the discrepancy is nothing at all, whatever the expected figure says. The same happens if you close without entering a count. A session that genuinely finishes empty needs its shortfall worked out by hand: expected, less whatever you removed.
Card Takings Are Not Reconciled Here
The card figure is what the till recorded, not what the processor settled. It will not match your payout, and it is not meant to: processor fees come off, and settlement runs on its own timetable, so a card total here is for sense-checking rather than banking against. Reconcile cards from the processor's own statement and the order list.
A Routine That Holds Up
Five Minutes, Same Order, Every Day
Count the float and enter the real number. Serve. Note anything taken out of or put into the drawer as it happens, in the session notes. At the end, count twice before entering, and read the discrepancy message rather than clicking past it. Write down the three figures. Then close, before you do anything else, so tomorrow does not inherit the session.
A drawer that is a few pence out most days is normal and tells you the routine is working. A drawer that is exactly right every single day usually means somebody is entering the expected figure rather than counting, which is worse than being out, because it hides the day the till is genuinely wrong.
When the Numbers Do Not Add Up
A shortfall the size of the day's cash takings. Yesterday's session was closed automatically. The figure you are looking at belongs to a session nobody closed.
A shortfall matching a refund. Cash handed back is not deducted from the expected figure.
Everything on one person. Sales count against whoever has the session open, not whoever served. On a shared drawer, that is the point.
A sale missing entirely. Check how it was paid. Anything that is not cash, card or a supported terminal goes to manual sales and never touches the expected cash.
Nothing to reconcile at all. No session was open when the sales were taken. Sales still complete and still become orders, so the money is not lost, but it was never counted against a drawer and the orders list is the only record.