At the end of a shift the drawer is counted. The product already knows what should be in it; the person counting says what is; and the difference is the only number anybody looks at twice.
What should be in it
| Effect | |
|---|---|
| The opening float | + |
| Cash taken on sales | + |
| Change given out | − |
| Cash refunded to customers | − |
| Cash paid out — courier, petty cash, drops | − |
| Cash brought in during the day | + |
| Card, UPI, wallet, gateway, credit | nothing |
The last line is the one people expect to be wrong and it is not. A ₹3,539 card sale is money the business has and not money in the drawer, and counting it would make every till look thousands over every single evening.
Refunds come off, and they are the sum that used to go wrong. A refund is cash leaving the drawer. Counted as a taking instead, the drawer is short by twice every refund — once for the notes handed over, once for the taking that never happened.
The variance
Counted minus expected. Zero is the answer. Anything else is either a mistake or a question, and the point of every rule above is that it is a short list of candidates rather than a shrug.
| Variance | Usually |
|---|---|
| A few rupees | Rounding, or change counted out in a hurry. |
| Exactly one sale | A sale rung up wrong, or a refund handed over and never recorded. |
| Exactly twice a refund | A refund recorded as a taking — check the method it was given back as. |
| A round number | A drop to the safe or a payout nobody wrote down. |
| Large and unexplained | The conversation this whole page exists to make possible. |
Once closed, the shift keeps its figures: opened by whom, with what float, what it took, what was counted, and what it was out by. It is a record, not a moment.
Who closes it
| Closing | Needs |
|---|---|
| Your own drawer | Nothing beyond being able to open one. Ordinary end of shift. |
| Somebody else’s | A manager, or a manager’s PIN at the till. Recorded. |
That distinction is the reason a variance means anything at all. A drawer counted and signed off by the same person who was standing at it all day, with nobody else involved, is a number that cannot be evidence of anything.
Which is also why a cashier is deliberately not given the approve right on shifts. It is not distrust of the cashier — it is that a control nobody else touches is not a control.
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