How to balance a cash drawer at the end of a shift

What does balancing a cash drawer mean?

Balancing a cash drawer, also called cashing up, means checking that the cash in the drawer at the end of a shift matches what your sales records say should be there. You count the cash, work out the expected amount, and record any difference.

It is the one daily check that catches mistakes while people still remember what happened. A KSh 1,000 shortage found the same evening can often be traced to wrong change or an unrecorded payout. Found a week later, it is simply a loss, and nobody can explain it.

What is an opening float and how much should it be?

The opening float is the cash you put in the drawer at the start of a shift so the cashier can give change. Keep it the same amount every day, made up of small notes and coins, and count it in front of the cashier who takes over the drawer.

How much you need depends on your trade. A kiosk may manage with KSh 2,000; a minimart where customers pay with KSh 1,000 notes all day may need KSh 5,000 or more. What matters is that the float is fixed, counted and signed for. If the float changes from day to day, every cash up starts with a doubt.

Build the float from small denominations: KSh 50 and 100 notes, and KSh 20, 10, 5 and 1 coins. Large notes in the float do not help anyone with change.

Which cash movements must you record during the shift?

Record every time cash goes into or out of the drawer for any reason other than a sale. An unrecorded payout is one of the usual reasons an honest drawer does not balance.

• Cash in: extra change brought from the safe or the bank.
• Cash drops: cash taken from the drawer to the safe during the day, so the drawer never holds more than it needs.
• Petty cash: small expenses paid from the drawer, such as milk for tea, cleaning materials, a boda boda delivery or a packet of bulbs. Keep the receipt or write a slip.
• Cash refunds: money given back to customers for returned goods.
• Supplier payments: cash paid to a delivery driver or supplier at the door.

Each movement needs an amount, a reason and the name of the person who made it. Petty cash is also a business expense, so recording it properly feeds straight into your profit figures.

How do you count the cash drawer?

Count by denomination, from the largest note to the smallest coin, and write down the number of each before adding up. It is slower than counting one pile, but it is far more accurate and lets someone else check your work line by line.

1. Take the drawer to a quiet place away from customers, or count after closing.
2. Count everything in the drawer, including the float. You take the float back out after the count.
3. Sort the notes into KSh 1,000, 500, 200, 100 and 50, and the coins into KSh 20, 10, 5 and 1.
4. Count each pile twice, and write the number of pieces and their value on a count sheet.
5. Add up the total and compare it with the expected cash.
6. Have a second person, ideally a supervisor, recount and sign the sheet.

How do you work out the expected cash?

Expected cash is the opening float plus cash sales and cash put in, minus cash refunds and all cash taken out. Only cash belongs in this sum: M-Pesa, card and credit sales are checked separately.

Expected cash = opening float + cash sales + cash in − cash refunds − cash out (drops, petty cash, supplier payments)

A worked example

A minimart in Nakuru opens the evening shift with a KSh 5,000 float.

At closing, the cashier counts the drawer:

The drawer is KSh 120 short: KSh 50,680 counted against KSh 50,800 expected. The KSh 5,000 float stays for the next shift, and KSh 45,680 is handed over for banking with the signed count sheet.

What do over and short mean, and what should you do about them?

Over means there is more cash than expected; short means there is less. Treat both seriously. An overage usually means a customer got too little change, a cash payment was recorded as M-Pesa, or a refund was recorded but never paid out, and the same carelessness causes shortages.

When a drawer does not balance:

1. Recount. Many small differences are counting mistakes.
2. Look for missing records: a petty cash payment without a slip, a cash refund recorded as an M-Pesa refund, a sale paid by M-Pesa but recorded as cash.
3. Compare payment methods. A KSh 1,000 shortage in cash next to KSh 1,000 more on the M-Pesa statement than in your records usually means a payment was recorded under the wrong method.
4. Record the variance on the shift record with the cashier’s name and any explanation, even when it is KSh 20.
5. Look at the pattern, not the single day. Every cashier has an occasional small difference. The same person short every week, or shortages on the same day each week, need a private conversation.

Decide in advance how you handle variances, explain it to every cashier, and apply it to everyone the same way. Before deducting a shortage from anyone’s pay, get advice on what your employment terms and the law allow. For the wider picture of how cash and stock go missing, see our guide to preventing shop theft.

How do you check M-Pesa and card takings?

Check them separately from the cash. Compare the M-Pesa total in your sales records with the M-Pesa statement for your till or paybill number for the same hours, and compare card sales with the card machine’s end-of-day total.

M-Pesa needs particular care because a sale can be recorded without the money ever arriving. Match each M-Pesa sale to a transaction on your own statement, not to a message shown on a customer’s phone; our guide on accepting M-Pesa payments explains how to avoid fake confirmation messages. Investigate a difference in M-Pesa or card takings exactly as you would a cash variance.

How cash up works in Wave POS

In Wave POS, each cash drawer session is a shift on a till. The cashier opens the shift with the float, records cash put in or taken out during the shift, and closes it by entering the counted cash. Wave POS shows the variance at close, over or short, so nobody has to work out the expected figure by hand.

• Petty cash as an expense. Cash taken out of the drawer can be marked as an expense with a category, such as cleaning or transport, so it also appears in your expenses and profit figures.
• Several cashiers, one drawer. Cashiers who share a drawer switch in with their own PIN, and every sale records who made it. The lock screen keeps the till closed between customers.
• Shift report. A shift report prints at close with the sales, payments, cash movements and the count, ready to sign and file with the cash.
• Every payment method. Split payments record cash, M-Pesa, card, bank transfer, cheque and customer account in one sale, so each method can be checked against its own statement. M-Pesa payments can carry the transaction code.
• Manager controls. Managers can close a shift from the back office and reopen a till’s last shift. The shifts report lists past shifts with their expected cash, count and variance, and exports to Excel, CSV or PDF.

See staff and shifts for how drawers, PINs and shift reports fit together.