We recommend that you follow these six rules for proper cash management.
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Open the cash drawer every morning and close it every night. This process prevent mistakes, ensures proper cash management, and keeps your bookkeeper/accountant happy.
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Evosus is an integrated software package, so what you do in the cash drawer directly impacts how and when the bookkeeper completes the bank deposits within the software.
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Closing the cash drawer every night also ensures that you catch mistakes early. If you wait a week to close the cash drawer and your bank deposits don't match what you physically deposited in the bank, you have to look through a week of transactions to find the discrepancy.
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Open the cash drawer with the same amount of money every day.
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It's a heck of a lot easier to figure out how much cash to deposit when the starting and ending balance remains the same.
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Your bookkeeper/accountant can easily audit the cash on hand balances in the general ledger report when they know that your cash drawers should always have a specific balance.
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It will make it easier for the person balancing the cash drawers each day if they know the amount the drawer is opened and closed with is always the same. If it's not policy to keep the same amount in the drawers, the bookkeeper/accountant and the person balancing the drawers must track down who closed the drawer, question why they closed it with a different amount, and ultimately no one can be held responsible since there isn't a clear guideline for the cash drawer open/left in drawer amount.
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The person opening the cash drawer in the morning will immediately know something is wrong if they count their open cash and it does not match what your policy dictates. The issue can be resolved immediately
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Only stock your cash drawer with enough cash to make change for customers
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Depending on store activity, a typical cash drawer should only hold $200 to $500. Remember, you can always add more money if you run out of change.
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Do not process draws directly from the cash drawer. Allowing employees to cash their checks or take draws straight from the cash drawer violates rule #3 above and gives too much access to your cash on hand.
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The cash drawer should only be used for customer related transactions. This helps eliminate the opportunity for money to "go missing."
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If your cash drawer is off at the end of the day, it should be clear where the money went. You should only focus on customer related transactions that occurred that day, not the draws that were taken from the drawer.
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Maintain a separate drawer and designated person to manage petty cash. This rule extends rule number 4. The more unrelated sales activity happening in the cash drawers, the more opportunity you have for mistakes and theft.
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If you have a full time bookkeeper or accountant, consider using them to manage petty cash. You might also want to consider using pre-paid VISAS.
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Balance your cash drawers daily. Someone should be responsible for balancing the cash drawer each day and review the Cash Drawer Activity Report to audit over/under.
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We recommend that you designate a policy for the amount the cash drawers are allowed to be over/under and have the person auditing the discrepancies research all drawer closings that violate the allowance.
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A closing form should be presented for each drawer that is closed EVERY time so that the person auditing the cash drawer can balance these to the Cash Drawer Activity Report.
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With someone auditing the cash drawers, it will be much easier to audit the ledger and cash flows since mistakes will be fixed immediately.