Closing the day, and what the variance means

Closing the day means telling the system how much money was actually in the drawer. It already knows what it thinks should be there; you supply the counted figure. The gap between the two is the variance.

How it goes

1. Open the day close screen under Money.
2. At the top you get the system's figures — cash today, card, bKash, and how much went out on credit.
3. Count the drawer. Count it before you look at the system's number. Once you have seen it, your count drifts towards it, and then the reconciliation was pointless.
4. Enter what you counted.
5. If it does not match, write down a reason. Then close the day.

Once closed, that day is filed. You can go back and read it, but not change it.

A variance is not theft

This is the most misread number in the product. A small gap happens on most days, and nearly all of the causes are innocent:

• Small change. A 297-taka bill paid with 300 and the 3 never handed back — the drawer is 3 over.
• A sale nobody rang up. In a rush, a packet of cigarettes or a bottle of water went out without a bill: the money is in the drawer, the sale is not in the system.
• Money spent out of the drawer. A van fare, tea, cash handed to somebody — out of the till and never entered as an expense.
• The opening float was wrong. What was in the drawer at the start of the day was never entered.

Ten or twenty taka either way is ordinary. What is worth watching is the pattern — if the drawer is short on the same person's shift every single day, that is no longer a story about small change.

What never to do

Do not edit the number so that it matches. Counting 9,700 and entering 10,000 makes today's book look tidy and destroys the only question worth asking, which is where 300 taka went. At the end of the month, when the profit does not add up, there will be nothing left to trace.

Enter what you counted, and write the reason. A variance you can explain is a good variance.

If you run shifts

Where several people take turns at the counter, close at the end of each shift rather than once at the end of the day. Then a gap tells you which shift it happened in. Counting once at closing time makes it impossible to separate three people's days from one another.

Why do it daily

Nothing is lost if you skip it — every bill is still filed. But on the day money really does go missing, you will not know when it started going missing. That is what closing daily actually buys you: a gap surfaces within a day instead of within three months.