Open and close a cashier shift

Q: I forgot to close my shift yesterday.

Close it now: count the drawer and Close shift . A cashier supervisor can close it for you. Until it is closed, the night audit cannot close that day.

Every cashier takes money inside their own open shift. At the end they count the drawer without seeing what is expected; the difference is recorded.

Hospitality Cashiering

5 min read

Updated October 20, 2026

For Cashier Front desk Manager Night auditor

Why shifts

Cash, card and bank payments are always taken inside the cashier's own open shift. The shift is the cashier's drawer: it starts with a counted float, collects every payment taken, and ends with a count. Each cashier answers for their own drawer only.

Open your shift

Choose Open cashier shift
Who
Each cashier, at the start of their shift
Where
Payments, or the shift bar on the money screens (folio, payments)
What changes
The Open cashier shift drawer shows your name and the business date.
Count the float and enter it
Where
Opening float: one line per currency (Currency, amount)
What changes
The float is what the drawer starts with.
Open shift
What changes
The shift bar shows your shift number. Payments you take now go into it.

You can have one open shift at a time at a property. If you try to take a payment without one, the payment window opens your shift first, then takes the payment.

Choose Close cashier shift
Where
The shift bar or Payments
What changes
"Count the drawer and enter what is in it for each tender." The takings disappear from the shift bar while you count.
Count every tender and currency
What changes
Enter what is in the drawer for each line: cash per currency, card slips, bank transfers. Nothing on the screen shows what is expected.
Close shift, and confirm
What changes
"The counts cannot be changed once the shift is closed." The shift closes.
Read the shift report
What changes
It shows, per tender and currency, Expected, Counted and Variance.

Expected is the opening float plus what came in, less the change given and the refunds and cash paid out of this drawer. Foreign currency is counted in its own currency.

Worked example: one cashier's shift, counted and closed

A cashier opens a shift with a float of 5,000 in cash. During the shift:

Guest A pays 10,000 in cash and hands over 10,000.
Guest B owes 3,700, hands over 4,000 and gets 300 change.
A guest pays 6,000 by card terminal; the cashier records the slip's Reference.
A cash refund of 1,500 and a paid-out of 500 (a taxi) come out of the drawer.

Expected cash is the float plus what the guests handed over, less the change, the refund and the paid-out: 5,000 + 14,000 - 300 - 1,500 - 500 = 16,700. Expected card is 6,000.

The cashier counts without seeing these figures: 16,650 in cash and 6,000 in card slips. After Close shift the report shows:

Tender	Float	Received	Paid out	Expected	Counted	Variance
Cash	5,000	14,000	2,300	16,700	16,650	-50
Card terminal	0	6,000	0	6,000	6,000	0

Received is what the guests handed over; Paid out holds the change (300), the refund (1,500) and the paid-out (500). The variance is the counted amount minus the expected amount, so -50 means the drawer is 50 short. It is recorded on the shift without a note or an approval, and the manager follows it in Reports › Cashier shift report.

Who can close a shift

The cashier who opened it, or a cashier supervisor (who sees and closes other cashiers' shifts and reads every cashier's report). A shift left open can also be counted and closed from Night audit, under Open shifts (Count and close). The night audit cannot close the day while any shift of the business date is still open: this cannot be waived.

What a shift changes

Area	Change
Cash drawer	Float in at open; payments in, change and refunds and paid-outs out; counted at close
Accounting	Nothing: each payment already made its receipt when it was taken
Night audit	An open shift stops the close of the day
Reports	The cashier report and the shift report show expected, counted and variance

Common questions

I forgot to close my shift yesterday.

Close it now: count the drawer and Close shift. A cashier supervisor can close it for you. Until it is closed, the night audit cannot close that day.

Can two cashiers share one drawer?

Each cashier works in their own shift and answers for its takings. If two people share one physical drawer, close and count at every handover; the next cashier opens their own shift with the float.

My count is different from the expected amount.

The difference is recorded as the shift's variance and shows in the shift report. No note or approval is needed; your manager follows variances in Reports › Cashier shift report.

Can I see the expected amount before I count?

No. The count is blind: the expected figures show only after the shift is closed.

Does the float count as money taken?

No. The float is what the drawer starts with. It is part of the cash you are expected to hold at the end, but it is not one of the payments the shift took.

A guest paid in dollars. How is it counted?

Foreign cash is counted in its own currency, on its own line of the count, and the shift's variance is worked out in local currency at the shift's rate.

Why shifts

Open your shift

Close your shift: the blind count

Who can close a shift

Common questions

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