Restaurant day-close checklist: how to cash up properly every night

To cash up a restaurant properly, count each kind of money separately (cash, card, online transfers and delivery-app orders), compare each count with what the till says was sold that way, write down any difference with a reason, move the takings to the safe and leave tomorrow's float in the drawer. Do it every night, in the same order, with the same person signing. The checklist below works with a pen and a printed sheet. The second half of this guide shows how a guided close on the till runs the same steps and blocks the shortcuts.

Key takeaways

• Expected cash = opening float + cash sales + cash in, minus cash out, cash refunds and safe drops. Everything else in the close is checking that sum.
• Count every payment type, not only cash. Card and online differences are just as real and take longer to surface.
• Clear open bills before counting. An unpaid bill is missing from sales, so the drawer can look right while money is missing.
• Write a reason next to any difference on the night. A difference explained a week later is a guess.
• A close is finished when it is signed and sent to the owner, not when the drawer is locked.

What do you need before you start counting?

Four things should be true before anyone touches the drawer. The last order has been paid or deliberately carried on a named tab. The kitchen has no ticket that was never billed. The till's sales summary for the day is printed or on screen, split by payment type. And you have the figure the day started with: the opening float, counted and written down that morning. If the float was never counted, tonight's close can still be done, but any shortage it finds cannot be proven.

The nightly close, step by step

Run the steps in this order. The first two make sure the sales figure is complete; the rest compare money with that figure.

• Step 1. Check open bills. Walk the list of unpaid orders. Settle, void with approval or explain each one.
• Step 2. Print the day's sales by payment type. This is the figure every count is compared with.
• Step 3. Count the cash drawer. Count by denomination, write each line down and total it. Have a second person watch or recount.
• Step 4. Work out expected cash. Opening float plus cash sales plus cash in, minus cash out, cash refunds and any safe drops already made.
• Step 5. Reconcile cards. Compare the card machine's settlement slip with card sales on the till.
• Step 6. Reconcile online transfers. Check each wallet or bank account's received total against online sales on the till.
• Step 7. Reconcile delivery apps. Compare the app's own order total for the day with the app orders entered on the till.
• Step 8. Check petty cash. Add up the slips and compare them with the cash-outs recorded.
• Step 9. Review voids, discounts and refunds. Every line needs a reason and an approver.
• Step 10. Split the service charge. Work out each waiter's share from their own sales.
• Step 11. Safe drop. Move the takings to the safe, leave tomorrow's float, and have two people sign.
• Step 12. Record and send. Write every difference with a note, sign the sheet and send a photo to the owner.

What is each count compared with?

A worked cash example

The figures here are illustrative. The day opened with a float of Rs 15,000. Cash sales were Rs 84,500. A manager took Rs 3,200 from the drawer for gas and ice, with slips. One cash refund of Rs 1,300 was approved. No safe drop was made during the day.

• Expected cash = 15,000 + 84,500 − 3,200 − 1,300 = Rs 95,000
• Counted cash = Rs 94,400
• Difference = Rs 600 short
• Safe drop = 94,400 − 15,000 float = Rs 79,400

The Rs 600 is written on the sheet with a note the same night: who was on the drawer, and what they think happened. Small differences in both directions are normal change errors. A drawer that is short most nights, or short only when one person is on it, is a pattern, and you can only see the pattern if every night was written down.

Where do paper closes go wrong?

• The expected figure is known before the count. The person counting sees the target and counts until it matches.
• Only cash is counted. Card and online totals are assumed to be right.
• Sales after midnight fall into tomorrow. A late-night restaurant ends up with half a service in each day.
• Delivery-app orders are mixed into online sales, so “online” looks over or short every night and people stop looking.
• The close is skipped when it is busy, and two days get counted as one.
• The sheet stays in a drawer. The owner hears about a shortage days later, if at all.

How does a guided close on the till do this?

Bhookly's daily closing takes the checklist above and makes the till run it. The day begins with a declared float: no sale can be rung until someone enters the cash in the drawer. During the day, cash in and cash out are recorded with a reason as they happen. Shortly before closing time a countdown banner appears, the cashier calls the manager, and the manager takes over the device by PIN and goes straight into the close.

The close then walks through cash, card and online one step at a time. Each step shows the working behind the expected figure and gives a verdict: matches, short or over. Skipping a count is not allowed, and a big difference needs a written note before the day can be sealed. Where online payments have been split into named wallets or banks, each one is matched against its own total.

The Z report

Closing produces one numbered end-of-day slip. The Z report shows sales, tax, counted against expected for each payment type, cash movements, voids, refunds, discounts and the service-charge split per waiter. That last section is the sheet restaurants use to pay out service charge, and it comes from each waiter's own bills, so nobody works it out on a calculator at one in the morning. About 30 minutes after the close, the people the owner has chosen get a summary and the Z report as a PDF by email. If the day is corrected, the corrected email replaces the earlier one.

Shift handover and the safe drop

A restaurant with more than one cashier can run up to four drawer counts a day. Each handover has its own count, a safe drop and a printed handover slip, so the evening cashier starts from a counted drawer and each shift answers for its own cash.

A business day that ends at 5 AM

For late-night places the business day can start at 5 AM. A bill paid at 1:30 in the morning belongs to the same trading day as the dinner service before it, and every report shows one clean day.

Delivery-app settlement

Orders paid through a delivery app are kept apart from the till's own money and checked against the app's own total at close. That removes the false “online is over” alarm and catches app orders that were keyed in wrongly.

The offline check

In the Windows and Android apps, Bhookly keeps taking orders, printing kitchen tickets and taking payment through an internet cut. At close, the till checks for food that was sent to the kitchen during an outage and never billed, and blocks the close until it is dealt with. An outage does not become free food.

After the close

A closed day is final, and the day-close record cannot be edited or deleted. The most recent closed day can be reopened by PIN to fix a miscount, and every reopen is logged. Tomorrow cannot start until today is closed, or force-closed with a reason. After each close ten checks look for sales that could vanish from reports, and the closing discipline scorecard shows the owner the closing streak, missed days and days sealed without a count.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a restaurant day close take?

A paper close with one drawer takes most managers 20 to 30 minutes once the routine is settled. A guided close on the till is shorter because the expected figures are already worked out, and the manager only counts and enters.

What is a Z report?

A Z report is the numbered end-of-day summary a till produces when the day is closed. Bhookly's Z report shows sales, tax, counted against expected money, cash movements, voids, refunds, discounts and the service-charge split per waiter.

What should I do if the till is short?

Recount once, check for an unrecorded cash-out or an open bill, then write the difference down with a note and the name of the person on the drawer. Bhookly will not seal a day with a big difference until a written note is entered.

Who should close the day?

A manager should close the day, not the cashier who ran the drawer. In Bhookly the cashier hands the till to the manager by PIN, and the close is recorded under the manager's name.

My restaurant closes after midnight. Which day do late sales belong to?

Late sales belong to the trading day they were part of. Bhookly lets the business day start at 5 AM, so sales after midnight stay with the same day's close and reports.

Can the day be closed if the internet was down during service?

Yes, once everything sold offline has been billed. Bhookly blocks closing if food sent to the kitchen during an internet cut was never billed, so nothing is lost between the outage and the count.

The bottom line

A proper day close is twelve small steps done in the same order every night: clear open bills, count each kind of money, compare it with what was sold, explain every difference, split the service charge, drop the takings and send the result to the owner. On paper it depends on discipline. On a till with a guided close, the steps cannot be skipped and the record cannot be rewritten. The Daily closing page shows Bhookly's version screen by screen.