Drawers and floats

Before Reconciliation can expect anything, it needs to know whose drawer a transaction went into. You choose that with the accountability setting, per store, with an exception for any till that works differently.

Operator or workstation accountability

rec.accountability-type.v1	Whose drawer	The till audit adds up
WORKSTATION (default)	the drawer stays in the till and every cashier uses it	everything rung up on that till, whoever was signed in
OPERATOR	each cashier has a personal drawer and takes it to whichever till they work at	everything that cashier rings up, on any till
NONE	nobody's	nothing: the store's transactions are not reconciled

🛑 NONE switches reconciliation off. The store's transactions are read and dropped, and changing the setting afterwards does not bring them back.

The two can be mixed in one store. The accountability type can be set per workstation as well as per store, and a workstation setting wins. A typical shape: the main tills use operator accountability, while a kiosk or post-office counter that every cashier serves uses workstation accountability with a shared drawer.

With workstation accountability, a drawer is shared, so a shortage cannot be pinned on one cashier from the till audit alone. Counting the drawer when cashiers swap splits the day into shifts, each with its own deviation. See Shifts.

When a till audit starts and ends

A till audit starts with the first transaction for a drawer that has no open till audit, usually the opening float or the first sale. It ends when its count is approved, or when it is approved with an explanation after the last allowed attempt. See Counting the till.

How long a till audit stays open depends on rec.do-auto-create-daily-reconciliation.v1:

Daily till audits	Behaviour
On	one till audit per drawer per business date. The first transaction of a new business date starts a new till audit, even if yesterday's has not been counted yet. Yesterday's stays open until it is counted.
Off (default)	the open till audit keeps collecting transactions, across dates, until it is counted

A drawer can therefore have several open till audits at once, typically yesterday's uncounted one and today's. Each transaction goes to the one it belongs to by date and time, so the two are counted separately, each against its own expected amount.

The float

The float is the cash a drawer starts with, and it is the opening amount of the till audit. It comes from, in this order:

1. The till. When the POS registers an opening float, that amount is the float.
2. The last count, when rec.initial-balance-mode.v1 is FLUCTUATING: the drawer starts with whatever was counted when the same drawer's previous till audit was completed. The cash is not taken out overnight.
3. A fixed amount, when the mode is FIXED (the default): the defaultInitialBalance in each tender's settings. The drawer starts every day with the same float.

Set rec.has-initial-balance.v1 to false for a till that starts empty. It is set per workstation.

⚠ Fluctuating floats and daily till audits do not combine. With FLUCTUATING, the daily till audit setting is ignored, because the next till audit's float depends on the previous one having been counted.

When the POS asks Reconciliation whether a till or cashier has an open till audit and none is open, the answer includes the float to suggest for each tender.

Cash changers

A cash changer is a device that takes and dispenses cash itself, such as a cash recycler at a self-checkout. Mark its tenders with isCashChanger in the tender settings. Reconciliation then keeps a separate till audit for the device, with the reconciliation type CASH_CHANGER. Ordinary drawers have the type CASH_DRAWER.

Setting	Effect
rec.use-single-cash-changer.v1	one cash-changer till audit for the whole store, instead of one per workstation
rec.do-auto-create-daily-cash-changer-reconciliation.v1	one cash-changer till audit per business date, as for drawers
rec.do-include-cash-changer-in-end-of-day.v1	whether the store's day can close only when the cash changers are counted too. On by default.
rec.do-ignore-tender-loan-for-cash-changers.v1, rec.do-ignore-tender-deposit-for-cash-changers.v1	ignore transactions that move cash into or out of a cash changer, for devices whose own system already accounts for them

Till audits with nothing to count

A till audit whose tenders and items need no counting, such as a till that only takes cards, is read-only. There is nothing for staff to do with it. It is closed automatically when the day is closed, with the expected amounts taken as counted. See Closing the day.