Reconciliation
Reconciliation answers one question for every cash drawer in a store: does the drawer hold what it should? Through the day it adds up every cash movement the tills record, so it always knows the amount a drawer is expected to hold. When store staff count the drawer, Reconciliation compares the count with that amount and decides whether the difference is small enough to accept.
One drawer's count and its result is called a till audit. At the end of the business day the store's till audits are closed together, and Reconciliation publishes a summary of the day that an ERP or accounting system can receive.
What it handles
| In the store | What Reconciliation does |
|---|---|
| A till opens with a float | starts a till audit with the float as its opening amount |
| Cash sales, returns, change, paid-in and paid-out | adds them to the drawer's expected amount, tender by tender |
| Cash moved between the drawer and the safe | adjusts the expected amount, and tells Cash Management |
| The cashier counts the drawer | compares the count with the expected amount and approves it, asks for another count, or locks the till audit |
| The store manager reviews the day | shows the deviation for the whole store, per till and per shift, and accepts spot counts and recounts |
| The day is closed | publishes one summary per store and business day |
Who does the counting
The counting happens in the store, by store staff. The cashier counts their own drawer when the shift or the day ends. The store manager reviews the result, recounts a drawer when needed, and closes the day. Both work in the Reconciliation module of Hii InStore, the back-office application Extenda supplies, so you do not need to build a client for it.
Every action in Hii InStore is an ordinary call to the Reconciliation API. If you want to drive the counting
from your own system, these are the calls involved. Each path starts with
/api/v1/business-units/{businessUnitId} or, where marked v2, /api/v2/business-units/{businessUnitId}:
| In Hii InStore | API call |
|---|---|
| See which till audits are open | POST …/reconciliations:search |
| See what to count | GET …/reconciliations/{id}/entries |
| Count the drawer | POST …/reconciliations/{id}/counts:count (v2) |
| Explain a deviation and approve | POST …/reconciliations/{id}:approve |
| Spot count during the day | POST …/reconciliations/{id}/counts:spot (v2) |
| Recount a finished till audit | POST …/reconciliations/{id}/counts:recount (v2) |
| Close the day | POST …/end-of-day:submit |
An integrator normally needs none of these calls. The tills' transactions reach Reconciliation through the Transaction Repository, and your systems receive the results through External Events. You send transactions in and subscribe to what comes back. You do not take part in the counting.
If you want to…
| …then read |
|---|
| understand how the expected amount in a drawer is built up |
| choose between a drawer per cashier and a drawer per till, and set the float |
| know what happens when the cashier counts, and when a count is rejected or locked |
| follow a deviation from the store total down to one till and one shift |
| close the day, and know whether that is mandatory |
| understand how the counted cash reaches the safe |
| see everything Reconciliation needs before it can start |
| configure tenders, limits and the behaviour per store or till |
| call the API |
| receive till audits and day summaries in your own system |
Terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Till audit | One cash drawer's reconciliation: its expected amount, the counts made against it, and the result. In the API and the events it is a reconciliation, identified by reconciliationId. |
| Workstation | A till, point of sale or self-checkout that records transactions. |
| Operator | The cashier signed in at a workstation. |
| Tender | A means of payment: cash in a currency, card, gift card, voucher. Each tender is counted separately. |
| Denomination | A note or coin value within a currency, such as 200 or 0.50. A count can be entered per denomination. |
| Expected amount | What the drawer should hold, according to the transactions. |
| Deviation | Counted minus expected. Negative means the drawer holds less than expected. |
| Allowed deviation | How far a count may be off and still be approved, set per tender. |
| Float | The cash a drawer starts with. Also called the initial balance. |
| Accountability | Who a drawer belongs to: one cashier (operator accountability) or one till (workstation accountability). |
| Cash changer | A cash-handling device, such as a cash recycler, that is counted as its own till audit. |
| Spot count | A count during the day that checks the drawer without closing the till audit. |
| Recount | A new count of a till audit that is already finished, made by someone with the right to recount. |
| Business date | The trading day a transaction belongs to, which can differ from the calendar date for stores open past midnight. |
| End of day | Closing all till audits for a store and business date, and publishing the day's summary. |