Use this article to set up cash handling for a store that takes cash: the cash drawer, opening and closing drawer counts, opening the drawer without a sale, recording cash taken out of the drawer, and where to see the results at the end of the day.
Cash management is turned on per terminal in the web dashboard and then used by staff on the terminal itself (Sunmi P3 MIX, T3 or D3 Pro). This article covers the set-up and where the information lands; the buttons themselves appear on the terminal once the switches below are on.
What cash management tools does Stackably have?
Stackably has five settings that together cover day-to-day cash handling:
Cash Drawer – lets staff pop open the cash drawer from that terminal. Turning it on also reveals Drawer Counting.
Drawer Counting – requires an opening cash count and a closing cash count on that terminal. This is how a drawer is opened at the start of a shift and closed at the end of it.
No Sale – lets staff open the drawer without ringing up a sale, for example to make change.
Payout – lets staff record money taken out of the drawer for an expense, such as paying a delivery driver or buying supplies. Each payout is posted to an expense category from Finance.
Day Cutoff – the time when one business day ends and the next begins for the POS, so a store that closes after midnight keeps the whole night on one day.
The first four are Feature Visibility switches on the terminal (Shop+ › Settings › POS › Hardware › Devices). Day Cutoff is in POS Options (Shop+ › Settings › POS › Settings › POS Options).
Opening the drawer automatically when a cash sale is completed is a separate printing setting, Open Cash Drawer, under Shop+ › Settings › POS › Hardware › Printing. See Printing settings in Shop+.
How do I turn on the cash drawer, drawer counting, No Sale and Payout?
All four switches are off until you turn them on, so a new terminal does not show any cash drawer buttons until this is done.
In the left sidebar click Shop+, then click Settings in the top row of tabs.
In the Settings sidebar expand POS, expand Hardware, and click Devices.
In Connected Devices, click the row of the terminal you want to set up (its SCREEN TYPE column says POS). The Feature Visibility panel opens under the row.
In the Payments group, turn on Cash Drawer. Drawer Counting appears underneath it and starts switched on. Leave it on if you want staff to count the drawer at the start and end of the day; turn it off if you do not.
In the Operations group, turn on No Sale if staff should be able to open the drawer without a sale.
In the Operations group, turn on Payout. A Default category box appears underneath it. Pick the expense category that payouts from this terminal should be recorded against.
Each switch is saved the moment you flip it. There is no Save button.
Repeat this for every terminal that has a drawer attached. If several terminals need the same set-up, use Save template in the top-right corner of the panel once and apply the template to the other terminals. The full list of switches, labels and templates is in Feature Visibility in Shop+ Settings.
Tip: Turning Cash Drawer off also turns Drawer Counting off and hides it.
Which terminals can have a cash drawer?
The Sunmi P3 MIX, T3 and D3 Pro support a cash drawer. The P3H handheld does not have a drawer port. For the drawers Stackably offers and how to plug one in, see the Stackably hardware guide and Hooking Up Cash Drawer to Terminal.
How does drawer counting work?
With Drawer Counting on, the terminal asks for a cash count when the drawer is opened for the day and again when it is closed. Those two counts bracket a cash drawer session.
Each closed session is listed on the Restaurant Dashboard (Dashboard in the left sidebar) in the cash drawer sessions panel near the bottom of the page. Pick Today, Yesterday, This Week, This Month or Last Month at the top of the dashboard to change the period. When no drawer has been counted in the period, the panel says No cash drawer sessions for this period.
If you do not want staff to count the drawer, turn Drawer Counting off. Cash Drawer can stay on so the drawer still opens for cash sales and No Sale.
How do I record cash taken out of the drawer (a payout)?
A payout is cash taken out of the drawer for a business expense: paying a vendor who delivers in person, buying supplies, tipping out, and so on. Recording it keeps the closing count honest, because the terminal knows that cash left the drawer for a reason.
Payouts are entered on the terminal with the Payout button, which shows once the Payout switch is on for that terminal. Each payout is posted to the expense category chosen in Default category in Feature Visibility.
The categories in that list are your Expense Categories from Finance. To see or add them:
In the left sidebar click Finance, then click the Finance tab at the top of the page.
On the right, open Expense Categories. Categories with no activity are grouped under No Sales; click that row to expand them.
Click Add Expense to record an expense or create a new category.
Switch the Finance Overview below the categories to List and click Expense to see every expense in the period, including payouts, with its date, category and amount. The same page shows your cash sales on the Income side: every POS order is posted automatically as Product Sales with its payment method and order number.
How do I open the drawer without a sale?
Turn on No Sale for the terminal. Staff then have a No Sale button on the terminal that opens the drawer without creating an order, which is the right way to make change or move cash between drawers.
Leave No Sale off on terminals where you do not want the drawer opened outside a sale. Because the switch is per terminal, a front counter can have it on while a kiosk-style station does not.
What counts as the end of the day?
The Day Cutoff setting decides when one business day ends and the next begins. It is set once per location:
In the left sidebar click Shop+, then Settings.
Expand POS, expand Settings, and click POS Options.
In the Workflow card, choose a time in Day Cutoff: 12:00 AM, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM.
Click Save Settings.
A store that closes at 1:30 AM should set the cutoff to 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM so late sales are counted with the evening they belong to rather than the next morning.
How do I close out at the end of the day?
A typical end-of-day for a cash-heavy store looks like this:
Finish any open orders on the terminal. The Open Checks report in Shop+ › Reports lists anything still open.
Close the drawer session on the terminal and enter the closing cash count.
Open Shop+ › Reports › Day So Far (or Sales Summary) in the web dashboard. The Payment Methods table shows the number and amount of cash payments for the day, which is the figure the closing count should be reconciled against after payouts. See POS Reports: choosing a day and reading the Day So Far report.
Check the drawer session on the Dashboard and the expenses list in Finance for the same day.
If card payments were taken, settle the batch from the terminal (the Settlements switch in Feature Visibility controls whether that screen is shown).
Good to know
Cash management switches are off by default on every new terminal. If a merchant says they cannot find the cash drawer or payout button, check Feature Visibility first.
The opening count, closing count, No Sale and Payout buttons live on the terminal. The web dashboard is where you turn them on and where you read the results.
A payout always needs an expense category. If the Default category list is empty, add a category under Finance › Finance › Expense Categories first.
Cash sales also appear on the Day So Far and Sales Summary POS reports under Payment Methods, and on the Finance page as income.
Related articles: Feature Visibility in Shop+ Settings · Printing settings in Shop+ · Hooking Up Cash Drawer to Terminal · POS Reports: Day So Far · What payment types does Stackably accept?