Cash sessions and the drawer — User Guide

Switching cash sessions on

Settings → Modules

Off to start with. Switch on Settings → Modules → Cash Till Sessions and two links appear under Finance: Cash Till Session and Till Cash Flow.

Use it when you want one cashier to be accountable for one drawer for one shift. Skip it if a single owner works the counter all day.

Opening the till

Cash Till Session

Cash Till Session opens on No Active Session until somebody starts one. Type the Opening Float Amount — the change you are putting in the drawer — add a note if you like, and tap Open Session.

From then on the page shows Session Active with the time it was Opened, the Opening Float, Total Sales, Total Payouts and Expected Cash.

Each cashier has their own session. Opening a second one while yours is open is refused.

Petty cash out of the drawer

Cash Till Session

New Payout records money taken out of the till: an Amount, a Purpose and optionally the Recipient. Record Payout logs it against the session.

Every payout comes off the expected cash, so the drawer still balances at the end.

Money out of the drawer at eight o'clock

The kitchen runs out of gas and somebody is sent to buy a cylinder.
New Payout — Amount: 4,500. Purpose: "Kitchen gas cylinder". Recipient: the person who went.
Record Payout logs it against the session.
Expected Cash drops by 4,500 straight away, so the drawer still balances when it is counted at midnight.
A payout that was never recorded is the single most common reason a drawer comes up short.

Closing the till

Cash Till Session

At the end of the shift, count the drawer. Type what you counted into Closing Float (actual cash counted), add a note, and tap Close Session.

The session moves into Session History with its opening float, its closing float and its status, and can be reopened for reading at any time.

A drawer that comes up short

Opening Float: 2,000.
Total Sales taken in cash during the shift: 34,000.
Total Payouts: 1,500 — a gas cylinder.
Expected Cash: 34,500.
The cashier counts 34,200 and types that in. The 300 difference is now on the record, with a note, instead of being lost.

Till Cash Flow

Till Cash Flow is the line-by-line ledger of one session: the Opening Float, the Total Sales, the Payouts, and then Cash Sales, Card Sales and Bank Transfer Sales split out.

Below that is the Transaction Ledger with the time, type, payment method, description and amount of everything that happened, and a Petty Cash Payouts table with each purpose and recipient.

Use the Session dropdown to look back at an earlier one.

A blind cash count

Roles → Cash Till Session

Roles → edit a role → Cash Till Session decides how much of the till's money staff on that role see. "Their own till, with the amounts" is how every role starts.

"Their own till, amounts hidden (blind cash count)" keeps the figures from them: they open the till, sell, record payouts and close it by typing in what they counted, but the page never shows the opening float, the sales, the payouts or the expected cash, the close box starts empty instead of filled in, Session History is hidden and Till Cash Flow does not open. The POS and the offline till are not sent the figures either.

A cashier who cannot see what the drawer should hold has to count it — which is the point. A count copied off the screen proves nothing.

The owner always sees every till. Give a manager's role "Every staff member's till" and they see them too.

Checking every cashier's count

Cash Till Session → Staff tills

Staff tills, at the bottom of Cash Till Session for the owner and the managers who see every till, lists every other cashier's sessions — open ones first — with the Opening Float, the Expected Cash, what they Counted and the Difference.

Difference is the count minus the expected cash: red below zero (the drawer was short), amber above zero (it was over). View opens that session's Till Cash Flow, line by line.

Pick a name from the list at the top to see one cashier's sessions only.