Closing up at ten

What does this tour show?

It shows the last five minutes of a sixteen-hour day in a sample corner shop. Fathima opened Corner Stop at half six in the morning. By ten at night she has sold over the counter, taken cards, put a few things on customers' tabs, paid the bread man out of the till and taken a part payment from a regular. Now she wants to know one thing before she locks up: does the drawer add up?

The tour uses a single phone screen, Close the day, and walks down it from top to bottom. The point it makes is simple. Everything that moved cash in or out of the drawer during the day was recorded when it happened, so the closing sum already knows about it.

Why do closing counts usually go wrong?

Most till counts go wrong because of money that moved without being rung up. The bread man is paid from the drawer. A neighbour settles part of their tab. Someone pops out for teas and takes a fiver. None of those is a sale, so a till that only knows about sales will always look wrong by those amounts, and the owner ends up doing sums on the back of a receipt.

When the difference is "explained" every night by memory, a real short gets lost among the explained ones. The way to fix it is to record each cash movement as it happens and let the closing screen do the arithmetic.

Step by step

1. Open Close the day. At 22:00 Fathima opens the closing screen from the till on her phone. It is the last job of the day and the first thing it asks for is the cash.

2. Count the drawer and type the total. She counts notes and coins and types £693.40. That figure sits at the top under "You counted". She has not yet seen what the till expects, which keeps the count honest.

3. Read the starting float and cash sales. Below the count, the drawer section lists what she started with, £100, and cash sales of £612.40. Card sales of £845.20 are not in this sum because card money goes to the bank, not the drawer.

4. See the tab payments already added. "Collected on credit" shows £52. That includes the £30 Mr Hussain paid at twenty to seven through Got paid. Fathima does not have to remember it or add it by hand.

5. See the cash paid out already taken off. "Paid out of the drawer" shows minus £70.50: £64 to the bread man and £6.50 for tea and food. Each was entered as cash out when it happened.

6. Compare expected with counted. The line "Should be in the drawer" reads £693.90. Against her count of £693.40, the label says Short £0.50. Fifty pence on a day like this is almost certainly change, and it is now on record.

7. Glance at the credit lines. Two figures sit side by side: credit given today, £38.50, and sales today, £1,496.10. The first tells her how much went out on tabs; the second is the whole day, cash, card and credit together.

8. Check who has owed longest. "Owing longest" lists the two customers whose oldest credit is oldest, with the number of days for each. Mr Hussain is at 21 days and Dave at 16. That is tomorrow's list for a friendly word.

9. Share the summary on WhatsApp. At 22:05 she taps "Share the summary on WhatsApp" and sends it to her husband. He sees the takings, the short and who owes, without either of them opening a laptop.

How the expected cash is built

The formula is the same every night: float + cash sales + collected on credit − paid out = expected. Counted minus expected is the over or short.

Tips for a calmer close

• Use the same float every day. If you always start with £100, a missing tenner in the float is obvious.
• Record cash out the moment you hand it over. "Bread man, weekly" takes five seconds at the counter and saves an argument with yourself at night.
• Take tab payments through Got paid, never as a sale. That keeps the takings true and lowers the customer's balance in the same step.
• Count in the same order each time: notes high to low, then coins. Fewer slips, faster count.
• Read the over or short as a trend. A week of small, random differences is normal. The same amount short every Saturday is a question to ask.

Common mistakes

Adding card sales to the drawer. Card takings feel like part of the day, and they are, but they are not cash. Mixing them in makes the drawer look hundreds of pounds short.

Taking the float home. If the float leaves with the takings, tomorrow starts with nothing in the drawer and the first customer of the day cannot get change. Leave the float, bank the rest.

Fixing a short by changing a sale. It is tempting to make the numbers match by editing a sale. That hides the real problem and makes the sales report wrong. Let the short stand and look at it with fresh eyes.

Forgetting the small paid-outs. Tea, milk for the staff room, a delivery driver's tip. Each is small; together they become a short that keeps coming back.

What should you do next?

Look at the owing-longest list tomorrow afternoon and decide whether anyone needs a reminder. The reminders tour for the same shop shows how to send one politely, and how a STOP reply is respected.

For the wider routine, the end-of-day cash-up guide covers counting by denomination, card terminal checks and what to do with a bigger short. The cash flow guide is worth reading if the credit given each day is creeping up faster than the money collected.

How EasyTaskr helps

The till keeps a running record of the float, cash sales, money collected on customer tabs and cash paid out, so the closing screen can show what should be in the drawer and whether you are over or short. End-of-day closing records the count for the day, and the summary, including who has owed longest, can be shared on WhatsApp in one tap.