Last reviewed: October 2026
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This free end-of-day cash-up checklist is the daily cashing up routine for cafés, bars, restaurants and shops, for the closing supervisor, the second counter, the manager and finance. In the US the same job is called closing the till or cash drawer reconciliation. One run is one site’s close of one trading day. It prints the Z report and closes each till, counts each drawer by denomination with two people away from the shop floor, counts out the float, closes the card terminals and checks every other tender. Then it works out over or short for each till and in total, and adds a recount and an explanation for any till over the site’s tolerance. The manager signs off before the banking is sealed with two signatures, the floats and safe are locked, the sheet goes to finance and the bank credit is confirmed. Answers on the first task hide the cash steps for a card-only site, the card steps for a cash-only one, and add tips and the right banking task.
Most opening and closing checklists give the cash one or two lines: cash up each till, bag the takings, lock the safe. The Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist, the Bar Opening & Closing Checklist and the Retail Store Opening & Closing Checklist all do this, because their job is the whole trading day. This checklist is the full cash-up procedure behind those lines, for the person closing the tills, the second counter, the manager who signs it off and finance.
It follows the money from the Z report to the bank: two people count each drawer away from the shop floor, the float is counted out separately, the card terminals are closed and checked, every other tender is accounted for and the difference is measured against the site’s own tolerance. Run it alongside the closing checklist, or on its own where the cash-up is done by a different person.
Covers: Z reports, the count by denomination, floats, card batch totals, vouchers, refunds, petty cash, tips, over or short against tolerance, the manager’s sign-off, banking and the bank credit.
When: every trading day, at close.
Output: a signed cash-up sheet, a sealed banking bag and a confirmed deposit.
Covers: the building, safety checks, food or bar set-up, service, cleaning and lock-up, with the cash-up as one or two steps.
Use them: for the rest of the day. Restaurant, bar or retail store opening and closing.
Covers: matching every bank transaction to the ledger, clearing reconciling items and an independent review.
Use it: each month; the confirmed deposits from each cash-up are the receipts it matches. Bank Reconciliation Checklist.
Eight phases follow one site’s close from the last sale to the bank credit. The answers on the first task decide the rest: a card-only site skips the counting and banking, a cash-only site skips the card terminals, and tips, a difference over tolerance, the way the cash is banked and a bank credit that does not match each add their own tasks. The manager’s sign-off is the gate: the banking, safe and finance tasks wait until it is done.
The person cashing up starts the run once the last customer has gone. The answers on the first task assign every task, set each due date from the close of trade and show only the steps this site needs.
Close each till before anything is counted. The end-of-day (Z) report is the till’s own record of what it took, by tender, and every count is checked against it.
Two people count each drawer away from the shop floor, by denomination, and the float is counted out before the takings. The count table follows the country chosen on the first task. This phase is hidden when the site took no cash.
Close each card terminal and check every other tender against the Z report. A refund, a voucher or a petty cash payment that is missing from the sheet shows up later as a difference.
Compare what each till took with what it should have taken. A difference over the site’s tolerance adds two tasks: recount and check the till log, then record the explanation for the manager.
The manager checks the sheet against the counts and reports, then signs off the cash-up and any difference. The sign-off is the gate: the banking, safe and finance tasks cannot be completed until it is done.
Prepare the banking, seal it with two signatures and lock the takings and floats in the safe. How the cash leaves the site follows the answer on the first task. This phase is hidden when the site took no cash.
Send the signed cash-up to finance, then check the money arrived. The bank credit should match the paying-in slip, and the card settlements should match the terminal totals less fees. A banking difference adds a follow-up task.
Each tender on the Z report has its own evidence. Checking them one at a time is what turns a difference into an explanation.
| Figure | Expected from | Checked against | Common causes of a difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | The cash total on the Z report, plus the float and less petty cash paid out | The count by denomination, less the float, plus cash lifts in the safe | Wrong change, a card payment rung up as cash, a missing lift slip, a wrong float this morning |
| Card | The card total on the Z report | The card terminal’s end-of-day total | A payment keyed on the terminal but not the till, a refund on one only, a declined payment the till recorded |
| Vouchers and gift cards | The voucher and gift card totals on the Z report | The vouchers and redemption slips in the drawer | A voucher accepted but not rung up, a gift card sale recorded as a sale of goods |
| Refunds and voids | The refund and void lines on the Z report | Refund receipts and the till log | A refund without a receipt, a void after the customer left |
| Petty cash paid out | Payments taken from a till during the day | Receipts with the approver’s name | A payout with no receipt, or a receipt never put in the drawer |
| Tips and service charge | The tip and service charge lines on the till or terminal report | The tips record | Cash tips mixed with the takings, card tips counted as sales |
Most of a cash-up is house practice. A few points come from law or from the tax authority, and the notes on each task follow the country chosen on the first task. This is not legal or tax advice.
| Point | United Kingdom | United States |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets the tips | In England, Wales and Scotland the employer must allocate all qualifying tips, gratuities and service charges fairly between workers at the place of business (Employment Rights Act 1996 s27D, added by the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023) | Under the FLSA an employer may not keep any part of employees’ tips, and managers and supervisors may not receive tips from a tip pool (DOL Fact Sheet #15); check your state too |
| When tips are paid | No later than the end of the month after the customer paid (s27G) | Card tips may not be held while the employer waits for the card company (DOL Fact Sheet #15) |
| Tips records | A written tips policy, and a record of how every qualifying tip was dealt with kept for three years (ss27I and 27J) | Check your state’s rules and your payroll provider’s advice |
| Suspect notes | Contact the police; the Bank of England cannot reimburse counterfeit notes, and knowingly passing one on is an offence | Hand suspect notes to the local police; businesses can also report them on Secret Service Form SSF 1604 |
| Old notes | Paper £20 and £50 notes stopped being legal tender on 30 September 2022; some banks and the Post Office still accept old notes as deposits | Not applicable |
| Keeping the records | Limited company: 6 years from the end of the financial year; sole trader: at least 5 years after the 31 January deadline; VAT retail schemes need a daily gross takings record | Until the period of limitations runs out, 3 years in most cases; cash register tapes and deposit records support gross receipts (IRS) |
Sources. Employment Rights Act 1996, Part 2B as added by the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 (in force from 1 October 2024; it covers England, Wales and Scotland, not Northern Ireland) and the statutory code of practice on distributing tips fairly; the Bank of England on counterfeit banknotes, withdrawn banknotes and exchanging old banknotes; HMRC on company records, self-employed records and retail schemes (VAT Notice 727); the Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #15 on tipped employees; the US Secret Service on counterfeit currency and the U.S. Currency Education Program; the IRS on what records to keep and how long to keep them.
A daily recurring schedule starts each site’s cash-up before the doors close. Enter the close of trade and every task gets a due date from it: the count and the sign-off that evening, the bank credit check two business days later. Each site’s cash-ups sit on the Reports Grid, so one still open stands out.
The manager’s sign-off is a gate: the banking, safe and finance tasks cannot be ticked off until it is done. A difference over tolerance adds the recount and explanation tasks first, so the manager signs off with the reason in front of them. See how approval steps work.
Z reports, terminal reports and the cash-up sheet are uploaded to the tasks they belong to, the count and floats are recorded in tables, and the activity log shows who counted, who checked and who signed. The Reports Grid lists every day’s cash-up with the answers given, so you can filter for tills over tolerance across days and sites.
CheckFlow does not run your tills, count cash or take card payments; your point-of-sale system and card terminals do that. CheckFlow runs the process around them: who counts, who checks, what was found, who signed off and when the money reached the bank.
Run the rest of the day with the Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist, the Bar Opening & Closing Checklist or the Retail Store Opening & Closing Checklist. Match the confirmed deposits each month with the Bank Reconciliation Checklist as part of the Month-End Close Checklist, review petty cash and other spending with the Expense Audit Checklist, and keep card terminals and card data in line with the PCI DSS Compliance Checklist.
Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist
Bar Opening & Closing Checklist
Retail Store Opening & Closing Checklist
Bank Reconciliation Checklist
Expense Audit Checklist
Describe the process in a sentence and the AI checklist generator drafts the phases and tasks for you.
A cash-up is the end-of-day check that the money in the tills matches what the tills say they took. In the US it is often called closing the till or cash drawer reconciliation. You print each till’s end-of-day (Z) report, count each drawer, count out tomorrow’s float, check the card terminal totals and the other tenders, and record any difference before the takings are banked. A daily cashing up checklist makes sure it is done the same way every night, by two people, with a manager’s sign-off.
On most tills an X report reads the totals so far without changing them, so it can be run during the day, for example at a shift change. A Z report is the end-of-day report: it records the day’s totals by tender and resets the till for the next day. Run one Z report per till at close and count against it. Check your own till’s manual, because the names and what each report resets vary by system.
There is no single figure. Each business sets its own tolerance in its cash policy, per till, and many treat a till that is over the same way as one that is short, because both mean something was rung up or handed out wrongly. This checklist asks for your tolerance on the first task and adds a recount and an explanation for any till outside it. Watch the pattern too: small differences that repeat on the same till are worth a look.
Count the drawer again with the second person, then check the till log: refunds, voids, no-sales, a card payment rung up as cash, a cash lift without a slip, or a float that was wrong this morning. Record what you found, the amount and what happens next, and let the manager sign off with the explanation in front of them. Record it as fact and do not accuse anyone without evidence.
Yes. Run the end-of-day or batch settlement on each card terminal at close and compare its total with the card figure on the Z report. A gap usually means a payment was keyed on the terminal but rung up as cash, a refund went through on one and not the other, or a declined payment was recorded on the till. When the settlement reaches the bank, check it against the terminal total, with the card provider’s fees shown separately.
In England, Wales and Scotland the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires employers to allocate all qualifying tips, gratuities and service charges fairly between workers, pay them by the end of the month after the customer paid, have a written tips policy and keep tips records for three years. In the US, the Department of Labor says the FLSA does not allow an employer to keep any part of employees’ tips. Keep tips apart from the takings at cash-up and add them to your tips record. Sources are in the table above.
Keep it out of the takings and the float, record it and do not pass it on. In the UK, the Bank of England says to contact the police and that it cannot reimburse counterfeit notes; old paper £20 and £50 notes stopped being legal tender on 30 September 2022, though some banks and the Post Office still accept them as deposits. In the US, the Secret Service asks for suspect notes to be given to the local police.
As long as your tax rules require. In the UK, HMRC says a limited company keeps records of money received, such as till rolls, for 6 years from the end of the financial year, and a sole trader keeps sales records for at least 5 years after the 31 January deadline. In the US, the IRS says to keep records that support income until the period of limitations runs out, 3 years in most cases.
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