Cash short at the counter? How to do a cash-up for every cashier and shift

Why does the cash drawer come out short?

Most drawer shortages are mistakes. Theft does happen, but you can only tell it apart from a mistake when each shortage can be traced to one person and one shift. The usual mistakes are these:

• Change given wrongly: a thousand-rupee note taken as a five-hundred, or the other way round.
• Cash taken out for tea, a loader or a small purchase, with no slip.
• A sale paid by card, bank transfer or wallet but entered as cash, so the drawer looks short by that amount.
• A refund paid out of the drawer but not recorded.
• A miscount at closing. Counting again often finds the money.

What is a shift cash-up?

A shift cash-up is a count of the cash drawer at the start and end of each cashier's shift, compared with the cash the shift should have taken. The cashier counts the opening float, sells, then counts the drawer again at handover. The difference between the expected and counted cash is that shift's short or over, and it belongs to that cashier alone.

It is the daily cash-up cut into smaller pieces. If only one person ever works the counter, the end-of-day count is enough; /blog/shop-hisab-kaise-kare explains that daily hisab step by step.

Should two cashiers share one drawer?

Not during the same shift if you can avoid it. When two people take cash from one drawer at the same time, a shortage belongs to both of them, and you can't trace it to either. Give each drawer one responsible cashier per shift, and count it every time it changes hands. If a second person has to help at the same counter, the cashier on duty stays responsible for the count.

How do you count the opening float?

At the start of each shift, the cashier counts the cash in the drawer by note and coin, writes the total, and signs or initials it. That number is the opening float. Without it, the closing count has nothing to compare against, and a shortage from the last shift becomes this shift's problem.

1. 1Count each note and coin separately: 5000s, 1000s, 500s, 100s, 50s, 20s, 10s, then coins.
2. 2Write the count per note and the total, with the date, time and till.
3. 3At a handover, the outgoing and incoming cashier both check the total.
4. 4Keep the float the same amount every day if you can. A wrong count is then easier to spot.

What should the cashier record during the shift?

Every rupee that enters or leaves the drawer without a sale needs a line: cash taken out for a payout, cash added from the safe, a refund, a cash tip. Write the amount and the reason when it happens. A payout remembered at closing time is usually remembered wrongly.

On paper, a slip in the drawer for every rupee taken out works well. At closing, the slips are added into the count. Shop expenses paid from the drawer also go in the shop's expense register on the same day.

Why should the closing count be blind?

In a blind count, the cashier counts the drawer before seeing how much cash there should be. If the cashier sees the expected figure first, it is easy to make the count "agree": to stop counting when the number matches, or to hide a small overage that covers a later shortage. Counting first and comparing second gives you the real figure.

The owner or manager then compares the count with what the shift should have taken: opening float, plus cash sales and cash added, minus cash refunds and payouts. Card, bank, wallet and udhaar sales are not cash and stay out of that sum.

What do you do when a shift is short?

Treat one small shortage as a mistake, and act when you see a pattern. Work through it in this order:

• Recount together, with the cashier present, before anyone is blamed.
• Look for a card, bank or wallet payment marked as cash.
• Check the payout slips and refunds for that shift.
• Write any gap that remains in a short/over log per cashier, with the reason if you find one. The same name short week after week is what to act on, not one bad evening.
• Decide your rule in advance: how big a gap needs your sign-off, and what happens after repeated shortages.

Accusing someone on the first shortage usually backfires. Staff start hiding mistakes instead of reporting them, and the next gap is harder to find.

Can a POS keep shift cash-ups, and who doesn't need them?

A one-counter shop where the owner sits at the till all day does not need shifts. One count at closing is enough. Shifts are worth it when more than one person handles the drawer in a day, or when the owner is not always at the counter. No software can see cash from a sale that was never rung up. Shifts make honest mistakes traceable, and you still need to be in the shop.

In NexusTill, till shifts are a switch per branch in Settings, and they are off until you turn them on. A shop that never turns them on keeps its daily cash-up as before. When they are on, the cashier opens a shift by counting the drawer by note and coin. Every cash payment, refund and cash tip after that is booked to that cashier's shift, and cash put in or taken out of the drawer is recorded with a reason. An X-report shows the shift so far. Closing the shift gives it a numbered Z-report that cannot be changed afterwards.

The closing count is blind: the cashier counts before seeing the expected cash, then sees expected, counted, and short or over. A gap beyond the limit the branch sets needs a reason and an approval from the owner (or, on plans with staff roles, a branch manager), and nobody except the owner can approve their own shift. The branch also chooses who must open a shift; anyone else selling on that till joins the open one. Opening and closing a shift need the internet. Selling does not.

Till shifts are on every plan. Starter has one till and two users; Growth adds more tills, staff accounts and roles. See /pricing for what each plan includes, and try it on your own counter for 7 days. No card is needed, and nothing is charged when the trial ends.

Written by NexusTill Team.