Cash-out & reconciliation: closing the day without leaks
What to reconcile, the checks that catch leaks, and how to lock the day.
Cash-out vs reconciliation
Cash-out is each server or shift declaring their sales, tips and cash at the end of service. Reconciliation is checking those declarations against what the POS and your payment processor actually recorded — so a mistake or a shortage shows up the same day, not at month-end.
The checks that catch leaks
Match POS sales to card settlements and cash counted; flag reinvoiced tables, unusual voids and discounts; watch for missing deposits; and compare each person’s declared cash to what the day should have produced. Small daily gaps are cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.
Lock the day so it can’t drift
A day should only become “official” once every shift is cashed out and every hour is approved — then it’s locked. Locking is what makes tips and pay visible to staff and stops numbers from quietly changing after the fact. A logged reopen (with a reason) handles the rare late fix.
PULSE runs daily cash-out by shift with reconciliation flags that escalate by age, then a Verify & Lock Day step that won’t close while any hours are still pending — with a per-server resume of hours, sales, tips and cash variance, and a logged reopen for late fixes.