How to open and close a cashier till

You will open a till with its float, take cash during the shift, count and close it, deposit cash to the bank, hand the rest to a colleague and read the shift report. Use it at the start and the end of every cashier shift.

Who it is forCashier and billing supervisorTime12 minutesProductHMSLevelBeginner

Before you start

You can open Billing › Cash & Shifts › Cash Sessions and Shifts. Opening and closing a session each need their own permission; accepting a handover needs another.
You know the opening float in the drawer, and the slip number if you deposit at the bank.
A bank account is set up (here "Primary Bank").

Steps

Check the cash settings

In Administration › Settings › Clinic, Blind cash count hides the expected cash from the person closing a till until they have counted. Stale cash-session alert (hours) (here 16) warns when a session stays open too long.

Clinic settings showing Blind cash count switched on and the stale alert set to 16 hours

Set up the shifts

Open Billing › Cash & Shifts › Shifts. Click Add standard shifts to add Morning 08:00 – 16:00, Evening 16:00 – 00:00 and Night 00:00 – 08:00, or Add shift to define your own window (a Name, a Start time and an End time in 24-hour time; overnight shifts such as 23:00 to 08:00 are supported). The list starts with only Morning and shows "3 total" afterwards. Reports group sales and collections by these shifts.

Shifts list with Morning, Evening and Night after adding the standard shifts

See the open till

Open Billing › Cash & Shifts › Cash Sessions. The open session shows its Opening float, Cash collected and Expected cash. The list below shows closed sessions with their counted cash, variance and deposit.

Cash sessions page with an open session, its float, cash collected and expected cash

Notice the stale banner

A session open longer than the limit shows a banner on every page: "Cash session CASH-000003 is still open. It has been open for 20 h (limit 16 h). Count the drawer and close it." Click Open Cash Sessions to go there.

Banner saying cash session CASH-000003 is still open for 20 hours

Count the drawer

Click Close session. The dialog shows the Opening float (PKR 2,000.00), the Cash collected (PKR 8,922.85) and the Expected cash (PKR 10,922.85). Count every note and coin in the drawer, float included, and type it in Counted cash (10850). The line below says Variance: Short PKR 72.85 (or Over) as soon as you type.

Close session dialog with counted cash 10850, the bank deposit and the handover

Deposit to the bank

In the same dialog, under Bank deposit (optional), type the Deposit amount (8000), choose the Bank account ("Primary Bank — Primary Bank") and type the bank slip number in Reference (HBL-DS-771204). The cash moves from the drawer to the bank account's ledger.

Hand over the rest

Under Hand over cash (optional) type the Handover amount (2850), choose Hand over to a colleague from the staff list (search "Search staff..."; here Dental Doctor) and add a Note (optional). The closing dialog also has a Notes (optional) box for the reason of a variance. The cash is held in Cash in Transit until the colleague accepts it, so it is never counted twice.

Recipient list for the cash handover with the staff members to choose from

Open the next session

Click Open session. Enter the Opening float (5000), choose the Shift (optional) (No shift, Night, Morning or Evening; here Morning) and Notes (optional) such as "OPD counter 2", then click Open session: "Cash session opened". No entry is posted because the float is already part of cash.

Open cash session dialog with a float of 5000 and the Morning shift

Watch the till fill

With a float of PKR 5,000.00, a cash payment of PKR 2,600.00 on an invoice takes Cash collected to PKR 2,600.00 and Expected cash to PKR 7,600.00. Card, bank and online payments do not, because they go to the bank.

Open session card showing cash collected PKR 2,600.00 and expected cash PKR 7,600.00

Read the shift report

Open Reports & Analytics › Shift Report and click Run. For each shift you see its window, the number of invoices, sales, cash collected and net collected across all payment methods (Cash collected and Net collected (all tenders)), with a total row (55 invoices, sales PKR 194,235.70, cash collected PKR 60,390.25, net collected PKR 103,002.45 for 1 to 16 October). Sales follow the invoice time and collections follow the receipt time.

Shift report with sales and cash collected for the night, morning and evening shifts

Follow the money in the ledger and the Cash Book

Open Reports & Analytics › Cash Book and click Run. Every movement of 1000 · Cash in Hand is listed with a running balance, so the three vouchers of the close can be followed line by line: "Reduce cash to physical count" (PKR 72.85), "Cash banked on shift close" (PKR 8,000.00) and "Cash out of drawer on handover" (PKR 2,850.00).

Cash Book for 1000 Cash in Hand with the vouchers of the session close

Check it worked

Cash sessions: CASH-000003 shows Closed, Counted PKR 10,850.00, Short PKR 72.85, Deposit PKR 8,000.00; CASH-000004 shows Open with an opening float of PKR 5,000.00.
Account Ledger: three vouchers for the close: JV-000539 the shortage PKR 72.85 (Cash Over/Short to Cash in Hand), JV-000540 the bank deposit PKR 8,000.00 and JV-000541 the handover PKR 2,850.00 (Cash in Transit).
Cash Book: the same three lines appear as payments from 1000 · Cash in Hand.

Common mistakes

Mistake	What you see	Fix
Opening a session while another is open	The Open session button is disabled	Count and close the open session first
Leaving a till open overnight	The stale banner appears	Count the drawer and close it
Leaving out the float when counting	A false shortage equal to the float	Count every note and coin, float included

Quick reference

Item	Meaning / rule
Expected cash	Opening float plus cash collected in the session
Variance	Counted minus expected: Balanced, Over or Short
Deposit	Moves counted cash to a bank account
Handover	Parks cash in Cash in Transit until the colleague accepts it
Blind count	Hides the expected cash from the person counting

Frequently asked questions

Does opening a session post anything to the accounts? No. The float is already in the cash balance, so opening only records the float and the shift.

Where does a shortage go? It is posted to the Cash Over/Short account as an expense and shown as Short in the sessions list.

Do card and bank payments count in the till? No. Only cash payments add to Cash collected; card, bank and online go to the bank.

What does the blind count do? It hides the expected cash from the person closing the till until they submit their count. Supervisors who can accept handovers still see it.

Do this in GridX HMS

GridX HMS runs this whole workflow. See what GridX HMS does and what it costs, or browse all step-by-step guides.