Cash register and shift handover

Add-on

Cash Register is an add-on. If you don't see it in your sidebar, it isn't on your plan — see What's included, and what's an add-on.

What this is for

Turning "the drawer looked about right" into a record: who opened it, what went in and out, what it should hold, what it actually held, and who signed it off.

A shift runs as a session: open the register, trade, count, submit for approval.

Opening the register

At the start of a shift:

1. Open Cash Register. With no session running it says so — "No active session. Start by opening the register."
2. Enter the Opening Balance — the float you're starting with.
3. Open Cash Register.

The session is now live, showing its status and when it was opened.

Count the float rather than typing what it should be. The opening number is the foundation of every figure that follows; if it's wrong, the closing difference is wrong too and you'll spend the evening looking for cash that was never there.

During the shift

The register tracks itself as you trade:

Figure	What it is
Cash Sales	Cash taken from customers.
Change Given	Change handed back.
Non-Cash Payments	Card, UPI, transfers.
Total Payments	Everything, all methods.
Expected (All Payments)	What should be there.

Cash in, cash out, safe drop

Three manual movements, each needing a reason:

• Cash In — money added that isn't a sale. Extra float, a returned advance.
• Cash Out — money taken out that isn't change. Paying a delivery in cash, petty cash.
• Safe Drop — moving cash from the drawer to the safe mid-shift.

Each asks for confirmation, and won't let you remove more than the drawer is expected to hold.

Safe drop regularly. A drawer holding a full evening's takings is a risk with no upside, and each drop is recorded so nothing is lost by moving it.

Write real reasons. "Cash out — £40" tells nobody anything. "Cash out — paid fish delivery, receipt attached" is an answer.

Closing the register

At the end of the shift:

1. Select Close Register.
2. Enter the closing count by denomination — how many of each note and coin.
3. Restodesk totals it as Counted Total and compares it with expected.
4. If there's a difference, write a Closing Note explaining it.
5. Submit for Approval.

The register closes and the session goes to a manager.

Counting by denomination

You count how many £20s, how many £5s, how many 50p pieces — not one total figure.

It's slower and it's the point. Counting by denomination catches the errors a single total hides, and when a session is short it tells you whether it's one big note or a handful of coins. Those are different problems.

Denominations are configured under the cash register settings for your currency. If nothing appears at closing time, that's why — "No denominations configured" — and it has to be set up before a register can be closed.

Explaining a difference

Small differences happen. What matters is that they're explained rather than absorbed.

Good notes name a cause: "£5 over — customer overpaid and left before change", "£12 short — suspect change error on the 7pm rush".

Don't adjust a count to make it match. The count is the fact; the difference is the information.

Approval

A manager reviews pending closings under Approvals: date, register, cashier, expected, counted, difference and note.

Then:

• Approve — the session is signed off and closed.
• Reopen — sent back to the cashier for correction.

The person counting and the person approving should not be the same. That separation is most of what makes the whole exercise worth doing. See What each role can do.

What managers can watch

The dashboard shows:

• Total Cash Sales Today and Total Payments Today, against yesterday and last week.
• Safe Drops Today.
• Sessions with Discrepancy over a period.
• Average Discrepancy per Session.
• Largest Cash-Out Reason.

Individual sessions are noise. The trend is the signal — average discrepancy climbing, or discrepancies clustering on one cashier or one shift, is something to look at while it's small.

X-Report and Z-Report

Two standard till reports, both printable:

• X-Report — a mid-shift snapshot. Read it without closing anything. Use it at a shift change, or when you want to know where you are at 9 pm.
• Z-Report — the end-of-session report, produced when the register closes. The formal record of the shift.

Alongside them: discrepancy, cash ledger, cash in/out and session summary reports.

A clean handover

When one cashier finishes and another starts:

1. Outgoing cashier does a safe drop of anything above the working float.
2. Close the register with a full denomination count.
3. Manager approves — or reopens if it doesn't add up.
4. Incoming cashier opens a new session with a counted float.

Two people, one count each, a manager in between. That's the whole control.

Good to know

• Opening, closing, approving, viewing reports and managing denominations are separate permissions. Split them.
• Sessions are per register and per branch, so multiple tills are tracked independently.
• Cash on delivery is settled separately — see Cash on delivery and settlements.
• Nothing here removes the need to physically count. It makes the count mean something.

Next

The money side is covered. Next are the add-ons — the parts of Restodesk that aren't on every plan, starting with kitchens and stations.