Open/Close Day

Probably the most common support question we’re asked is on how to open and close days. Surprisingly this isn’t just a question we get from our new customers. Often it comes from customers that have been using the program for awhile but find that they’re having trouble balancing the drawer at the end of the day. We’ve worked out an outstanding system to ensure that you balance each day. There are a few extra steps involved but those extra steps will save a lot of time spent searching for mistakes and avoid those late nights spent sifting through receipts looking for that one problem sale.

At the beginning of each day you should go to Verify Monies and go to the Cash section. You can then either use the Cash Helper to count your money or manually count the money and enter the total on the bottom line. This step is critical because we need to make sure what’s physically in the drawer matches to the Computed Total shown on the screen. If for some reason the two numbers don’t match – a possibility if extra money was brought from the bank and put into the drawer without recording that transaction in the program – we’ll want to record those changes in the Pay In/Out section. After you’ve finished with the Cash we’d recommend double-checking all the other sections (Checks, Credit Cards, etc) to ensure that they’re all empty. We want to make absolutely sure that we’re starting fresh in the morning with a clean slate and that our actual and computed cash matches as the hardest problems to track down when balancing at the end of the day come from not starting with the right amount in the drawer.

Once that’s done we can start our normal operation running sales through as they come in. Periodically throughout the day you’ll want to go back to Verify Monies to handle the non-cash sales. You’ll go into each non-cash section (Checks, Credit Cards, etc) and the program will show you a list of all transactions in that area.

For example, if you click Checks you’ll get a list of all the checks you’ve brought in so far that day. Pull your checks out of your cash drawer and match them up to the ones on the screen. As you match each one up, click it on the list on the left and it will move it to the Verified list on the right. Then take that check and put it into a finished pile. When you finish or if you run out of time paper clip the checks in your finished pile so that you know you don’t need to do those again and click Continue on the screen. When you come back in later it will pick up right where you left off with all the verified checks on the right and any new checks on the left.

At the end of the day you’ll go back to Verify Monies one last time. Do the Checks, Credit Cards, etc one last time to take care of any last minute sales. Then you’ll repeat your step on the cash section from the beginning of the day to make sure your cash still balances. If there are any mistakes you’ll want to use the Detailed Daily Sheet under Reports -> List Daily Sheets to track those down. Once you’re completely done with any corrections and Verify Monies you’ll go to the Close Day screen to finish your day.

This process does three things for you. First, you catch any mistakes during the day rather than having to look for them at the end of the day. Second, you’re actually spreading the close day process out over the entire day into your free time rather than trying to fit it all in at the end of the day when you’d rather be locking up and heading home. It’s simply a better use of time because you’re making use of down time to speed up your close day. Finally, using the Verify Monies cuts down on Close Day mistakes because the information from the Verify Monies screen automatically transfers over to the Close Day screen. That eliminates any errors adding up checks and credit cards or mis-keyed numbers.

As always, for any questions on making these steps work for you give our techs a call and we’d be happy to help you.