Closing the day

At seven in the evening the counter is quiet, the van is back and the last rep has sent the last order. One question is left before anyone goes home: does the cash in the drawer match what the system says should be there? This tour shows the owner closing the day, from the recorded totals to the moment the day is locked.

Step by step

1. Open the day close. Today's sales are gathered in one place across cash, card and account. You do not need to run three reports and add them up.

2. Read what the system recorded. The first panel lists the day line by line: cash sales, card sales, sales on account, payments customers brought in, and cash paid out. It ends with one figure, the cash that should be in the drawer. Sales on account are there for completeness, but they do not feed the drawer, because no money changed hands.

3. Count the drawer and type the total. The owner counts the cash, notes and coins, and types the figure into Counted. It sits right next to Expected, so the comparison needs no arithmetic.

4. Read the difference. Below the two figures is the difference, in pounds, with a plain-words label: Balanced, Short or Over. In the tour's sample the drawer is £4.20 short, and the label says "Short, add a note".

5. Write a note on any difference. A short sentence is enough: "£4.20 short, change given wrongly on a cash sale at the counter, staff aware." The note stays with the day. Next month, nobody has to remember.

6. Review before closing. A final panel lists the totals that make up the day: sales total, cash collected, card payments, credit sales and expenses, each ticked as checked. It is a last look before the day is locked.

7. Close the day. One button closes it. Once closed, the day stays closed: sales cannot be quietly added or removed later.

8. Know how to reopen it if you must. Only an owner can reopen a closed day, and they have to give a reason, which is logged. Mistakes can be put right, but never invisibly.

The day in numbers

The tour's sample day, worked through.

The expected figure is float plus cash sales plus cash payments in, minus cash paid out. Card and account sales are shown so the day's selling is complete, but they never touch the drawer. A business that adds them in will see a "shortfall" of thousands every night.

Is £4.20 short a problem?

On its own, no. Cash handling at a busy counter produces small differences, and most are honest mistakes in change. What matters is the pattern. Short by a few pounds once a fortnight, with a note each time, is normal. Short every day, always on the same shift, or short by round amounts such as £20 or £50, is something to look into. The notes are what let you see the pattern. Our end-of-day cash-up guide covers how to set a tolerance and what to do when a difference goes over it.

What a good close looks like, start to finish

In a small cash-and-carry the whole close should take ten to fifteen minutes. Stop serving at a set time, so no sale lands halfway through the count. Print or note the card machine's end-of-day total. Count the drawer in two piles: the float you will leave for tomorrow, and everything else. Type the full count into the day close, read the difference, write the note, run your eye down the review panel and close. Then bag the cash for the bank with a slip showing the amount and the date.

If one person always does this, the routine stays tight. If several people share it, write the steps on a card and keep it by the till. The same steps in the same order every evening is what turns a cash-up from a chore into a check you can trust.

Tips for closing the day

• Count before you look at Expected. If you know the target, it is tempting to stop counting when you reach it.
• Close at the same time every day. A day that is still open at midnight collects sales that belong to tomorrow.
• Have someone other than the cashier do the count when you can. It protects the cashier as much as the business.
• Take the cash for the bank out after closing. Then the float for tomorrow is a clean, known amount.

Common mistakes

Adding card or account sales into the drawer. They are part of the day's sales, not part of the cash.

Leaving the note empty. "Short £4.20" with no reason teaches nobody anything.

Reopening a day to make it balance. If the cash was short, it was short. Changing a sale to hide the difference turns a small mistake into a false record.

Forgetting cash paid out. A tenner from the drawer for milk, not recorded, shows up as a shortage at close.

Why lock the day at all?

A day that can be edited forever is a day nobody can rely on. Your profit report for the month, the VAT on your sales and the stock that went out all build on closed days. Locking each one means the figures you looked at on Friday are still the figures on Monday. If something must change, the owner can reopen it, and the reason is logged.

What to do next

With the day closed, the week's reports have a solid base. Later in the evening the owner can look at the week in five minutes: sales against last week, best sellers and slow movers. To build a cash-up routine your staff can follow without you, read end-of-day cash-up. And if account sales are much bigger than cash every day, cash flow for small business explains why that profit is not yet money in the bank.