Cash handling routines that prevent till losses

How much cash is in your drawer right now? If the honest answer is "roughly," that gap is where losses live. Cash handling procedures for retail come down to four habits: start every shift from the same counted float, move big bills out on a schedule, count at every handover, and reconcile against the POS report at close.

None of the four is complicated. The discipline is doing them every day, including the slow days, because routines with exceptions aren't routines.

What should a starting till look like?

The float, sometimes called the bank, is the fixed amount of change the drawer starts with every shift. Pick a number and hold it constant, because a fixed float is what makes every later count mean something. A worked example, purely hypothetical: a $150 float might break down as $20 in ones, $50 in fives, $50 in tens, and $30 in rolled coin. Your mix should match your neighborhood; a store selling lots of $2 and $3 items burns through ones and quarters fastest, and the float should reflect that.

Arrange the till, the removable tray in the drawer, the same way every day, and face the bills in one direction. Uniform drawers count faster, and a twenty sitting in the tens slot stands out immediately.

When should cash leave the drawer?

On a trigger, not a feeling. A drop means moving excess cash from the drawer to the safe mid-shift, and it works best with a fixed threshold: say that whenever the drawer holds more than $400, you drop $200 and log the time and amount. The POS, the point of sale system at your register, typically has a paid-out or safe-drop function so the drawer's expected total stays accurate after each drop.

The math is the whole point. A drawer that never holds more than a few hundred dollars caps what any single bad event can cost, an error and a theft alike. Large bills should head under the till or into the drop path as soon as they arrive, not at closing time.

How do you count down a drawer at close?

Count back to the float. At close or shift change, count the drawer, subtract the float, and compare what's left to the cash total on your POS report. Record the over or short figure every single day, even when it's zero. The daily number matters less than the pattern: a drawer off by 30 cents in random directions is normal life with change involved. A drawer short on the same shift every week is information.

Count away from the counter when you can, with a fresh till swapped in so the register keeps running. On heavy cash days, two people counting together, one counting and one writing, is slower and worth it.

Habits that keep the count honest

One person per drawer per shift wherever staffing allows, because accountability evaporates when three people share a till. Close the drawer after every transaction; an open drawer between customers invites error and temptation in equal measure. Check large bills at the register, politely and for every customer, so the check never reads as an accusation. Keep deposit prep out of sight of the sales floor.

None of this assumes bad staff. Good routines protect honest people from suspicion just as much as they protect the drawer.

Coin rolls, counterfeit detector pens, and deposit bags are stocked in store supplies at NRS Marketplace, and spare tills are under POS parts.