How to balance the till at your bar every night.

How to balance the till, in short

Balancing the till means comparing the cash in the drawer with the cash there should be according to the day's sales. That comparison is the cash count, and the gap between the two is the difference: you're either over or short.

If the difference is positive, you're over; if it's negative, you're short. Card payments are balanced separately: the card total in the POS has to match the card terminal's end-of-day report. Tips stay out of the sum too: they go in their own jar or on their own line.

Cashing up in three steps

Do it the same way every time, at the same time and with every table paid. If cashing up by hand takes you 20 minutes a night, that's 10 hours a month: it pays to have it down pat.

1. Gather what you'll compareSettle any open tables, print the Z report from the POS (or the cash register) and the card terminal's end-of-day total, and collect the receipts for anything you paid out of the till.
2. Count the cash note by note and coin by coinSort each kind and write down how many there are: it's harder to slip up than when you add everything at once. Take the tips out before you start.
3. Compare and write down the difference with its reasonSubtract what's expected from what you counted. If it doesn't balance, look for the cause (the nine most common are below) and write it down even if you can't find it. Then set aside tomorrow's float and put away or bank the rest.

Watch the short: How to balance the till in 3 steps

The blind count: counting without knowing what there should be

In a blind count, whoever closes counts the money without seeing how much there should be. They write down what they counted, and someone else, the manager or you, compares it with the expected amount afterwards.

That way nobody can adjust the count to what the POS expects, the difference you see is the real one, and end-of-shift arguments stop: whoever counts doesn't have to justify anything there and then.

Excel template for cashing up

One sheet for each close and another for the month. It downloads straight away, without leaving your email, and opens in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice or Numbers.

Download the Excel template.xlsx file with two sheets

Why the till doesn't balance: nine reasons

It's hardly ever theft. Go through these causes in order, from most to least common:

1. A payment with the wrong methodThe customer paid by card and it was rung up as cash, or the other way round. The clue: if cash is over by the same amount card is short, look for a payment of that amount.
2. Cash taken out and not written downSomeone paid a supplier, bought ice or took notes to the safe and didn't note it down. Exactly that amount is missing.
3. Sales entered twiceMoney from sales already taken in the POS that was also entered as cash in. The expected amount goes up and it looks like money is missing.
4. Payments outside the shiftWhatever was taken before the till was opened is in the drawer but not in the expected amount: you're over. Whatever's taken after closing goes into the next shift.
5. The wrong floatIf the float entered at opening wasn't the one actually in the drawer, the difference is that gap.
6. Tips left in the drawerIf cash tips stayed in the till and you counted them, you're over by that amount.
7. Online payments in the card totalWhat's paid online doesn't go through the card terminal. If card is short by exactly that, add it to the terminal total.
8. A refund from another dayIf today you refund money from a bill paid yesterday, today is short by that amount even though everything is fine.
9. Wrong changeIf, after checking all of the above, the difference is small, wrong change was almost certainly given somewhere. Write it down.

Watch the short: If you're €20 short in the till every day

How Food&Service does it

In the Food&Service POS, each shift's till is called a cash count. You open it with the float, the POS adds up every cash and card payment by itself, and when you close it tells you straight away whether it balances, is over or is short.

1. The expected amount, already worked outFloat, sales, cash in and cash out for each payment method, with no Z report to go through by hand.
2. Count cashYou enter how many notes and coins of each kind there are and the POS does the sum.
3. Blind count per employeeYou switch it on in the profile of whoever you choose: they close without seeing the expected amount or the difference, and you check it in the history.
4. Every difference with its noteThe reason is saved in the cash count, and anyone with permission can correct it later.
5. Every payment with a nameEach employee logs in with their PIN, so every order, payment and close is under the name of whoever did it, and every cancelled item comes with its reason.
6. The report in your inboxEach close sends the PDF report by email to you or your accountant: sales, the count by payment method, tips and taxes.

And if you'd rather the cash didn't go through your team's hands at all, the smart cash drawer takes payment by itself: the customer puts the money into the machine, it gives the change and the bill is marked as paid in the POS.

The hospitality POSThe smart cash drawer