Cash drawer buying guide: sizes, tills, and locks

The cash drawer is the least glamorous thing at your checkout and the piece you'll touch the most. Choosing a cash drawer for POS work comes down to three decisions: the width that fits your counter, how it opens (usually through the receipt printer), and the till layout inside, where five bill and five coin compartments is the common US standard.

Get those three right and the drawer disappears into the background of your day, which is exactly what you want from it.

What size cash drawer does a small store need?

Width is the first spec on every product page. Compact drawers around 13 inches suit tight counters and lighter cash volume; 16-inch models are the common middle ground; 18-inch and wider drawers add till capacity for heavier traffic. Measure the counter spot first, and remember the drawer needs clearance to open fully with a person standing in front of it. A drawer that bumps the cashier's hips on every sale gets slammed, and slamming is what kills drawers.

One practical note: a steel drawer loaded with rolled coin is heavier than it looks. If it's going on an under-counter bracket rather than sitting on the surface, check what the bracket is rated to hold.

How does a cash drawer connect to your POS?

Most drawers are printer-driven. A cable, usually called a kick cable, with a phone-style RJ-type plug, runs from the drawer to a port on the receipt printer. Your POS, the point of sale system running the register, tells the printer to send a short electrical pulse down that cable, and the pulse releases the drawer latch. When the drawer pops as the receipt prints, that pulse is what just happened.

Some drawers connect directly by USB instead, and any decent drawer also includes a key for opening it manually when the power is out. Printer-driven remains the standard for a reason: it's simple, it's cheap, and it works with nearly any POS that can drive a receipt printer. The printers themselves live in the POS systems and card readers category if you're building the whole stack at once.

Locks, keys, and the media slot

Drawer locks commonly offer three key positions: locked shut, an online position where the printer pulse can open it, and a manual position that opens the drawer without any power at all. Keep one key at the register and a backup somewhere only you know. Worth saying plainly: drawer keys are often shared across a model line, so the lock is a deterrent, not a vault. Treat it that way and move large bills out of the drawer on a schedule.

The media slot, the thin horizontal opening in the drawer face, lets staff slide checks and large bills under the till without opening the drawer. It's a small feature that quietly cuts down how often the drawer sits open in front of a line.

Why a spare till changes shift change

The till is the removable tray holding the bill and coin compartments. Buy at least one spare. With a second till, shift change becomes a swap: lift out the till to be counted, drop in a fresh counted one, and do the reconciliation in the back room. Run the comparison: counting a drawer at the register takes several minutes with customers watching and interruptions arriving on cue, while a till swap takes seconds and moves the counting somewhere quiet, where mistakes are less likely.

Durability on drawers is usually quoted in open-close cycles. Treat a bigger number as better without leaning on the exact figure; slides and latches are what wear out, and a drawer that feels solid opening in the showroom usually stays that way. Coin wrappers and deposit supplies to go with it are in store supplies.