Cashier Shifts
A shift is one person's drawer, from the cash it opened with to the count it closed on.
Without it, the clinic knows what was taken but not which till it landed in. Two receptionists work the same desk on the same day, the drawer is 200 short the next morning, and the shortfall belongs to nobody. That is the gap this closes: every payment is stamped with the drawer it went into, and every drawer has a name on it.
Where to Find It
Click an address to open that screen on your own clinic. The first click asks which clinic you are, then remembers it. Addresses holding a {id} need a specific record, so they are shown but not linked.
| Screen | Address |
|---|---|
| All shifts | /shifts |
| My open shift | /shifts/mine |
| Differences by cashier | /shifts/differences |
| One shift | /shifts/{id} |
| Closing a shift | /shifts/{id}/close |
Opening a Shift
Shifts → Open shift, or the same button on the home page — the first act of the day belongs where the day starts.
One answer: how much cash is in the drawer before anybody pays anything — the opening float. The branch is not asked. It is the one you are working in, which the system already knows, and it is printed on the sheet so you can see where the drawer is opening.
From that moment the expected cash reads the float, and everything you take is stamped with this shift.
The home page strip then carries the drawer's running figures beside the "shift is open" line: taken — everything the shift has collected, all methods — and expected in drawer, the cash only. Checking what you have collected so far does not need the shift record opened.
One open shift per person, per branch. You cannot open a second in the same branch; the button offers you the one you have. To work a second branch, switch branch in the top bar and open a drawer there — that is two drawers, which is what they are.
What Belongs to a Shift
Every payment, refund and cash expense recorded while your shift is open belongs to it, and the record is permanent: closing the shift and opening the next one does not move anything, and no screen can reassign a payment afterwards. A correction belongs in the shift that is open now.
The shift is yours, not the branch's. A doctor taking money in their room and a receptionist taking money at the desk are two different drawers. If the doctor never opens a shift, their payments belong to none — which is legal, and shows up as such.
Taking money with no shift open
The clinic chooses what happens:
- Warn (the default) — the payment form tells you it will not belong to any shift, and lets you continue.
- Block — the payment is refused until a shift is open.
Warn is the default deliberately: switching the system on should not stop a clinic taking money the next morning. Turn on Block once your desk is in the habit.
The Live View
The shift's own page is the one a cashier keeps open all day. It answers one question: how much cash should be in this drawer right now.
It shows the arithmetic rather than only the answer — the float, then every movement in the order it happened — because the moment that number matters is the moment somebody disagrees with it and has to walk back through the day.
Beside it: what was taken by each method, and how many transactions. Card and transfer never appear in the drawer's arithmetic. That money never passed through the till.
Cash Out
Cash out records money leaving the drawer for something that is not a refund: the water, the taxi, a box of gloves somebody ran out for.
Give the amount, the reason, and the expense account it belongs to. The same figure is then a line on your shift and a line in the clinic's books — which is the whole reason this is not a note in the drawer.
Paying out more than the drawer holds is allowed, with a warning rather than a refusal: a drawer can genuinely go negative on paper between a takings run and the moment somebody writes it down.
A refund handed back in cash also comes out of the drawer, and is listed separately from a cash-out — they are different facts and a supervisor reads them differently.
If the clinic does not use the expenses module
The cash-out is still recorded on the shift, and the screen says it was not posted to the books. Nothing is lost quietly.
Working Without a Line
A payment taken while the internet is down is queued, and it remembers the drawer it went into. It rejoins that shift when the work syncs — provided the shift is still open.
Close a shift with work still queued and the two will disagree: the payment arrives afterwards, finds its drawer counted and signed, and is recorded as belonging to no shift. The sync screen names the shift and the amount so it can be reconciled by hand. Sync first, then count.
Opening a shift needs the line, so the button is hidden while offline. See Working Without Internet.
Closing a Shift
Closing is a page of its own, not a box over the screen. It is done standing at a desk with a stack of notes in one hand, it cannot be undone, and it is the moment the day becomes a record with your name on it.
Counting
The screen opens on a single counted cash box: you count the drawer in your hand and type the one figure. That is the default because it is how a close is actually done — the notes are already counted before anyone looks at a screen.
If you would rather the screen did the arithmetic, How many of each note and coin switches to counting by denomination — how many 200s, how many 100s, down to the coins — and adds them up for you. It is the safer way to answer: a slip in a sum done on paper is filed as a shortage against your name. Switching to the total carries the counted figure over; switching back to the notes starts the breakdown empty, because a total cannot be split back into notes.
Either way the server decides the difference; when you count by note it re-adds the notes itself and ignores any total sent with them.
The count comes first and the expected figure sits under it. That order is deliberate: a cashier who reads "expected 1,200" before counting has been told the answer.
A drawer expecting 0.00 — opened with no float and used for nothing — closes without counting. There is nothing to count, and requiring it left a shift that could never be closed.
Card, transfer and the rest
Each non-cash method is reconciled on its own row against what the terminal or the bank reports, with its own difference.
A card difference never touches the cash difference. A terminal that settled 200 light is a question for the terminal, not money missing from your drawer — folding them together is how a cashier ends up explaining a shortage they never had.
The difference
- Zero — the shift closes immediately and becomes read-only.
- Any difference — you must give a reason before it will close.
- A cash difference above the clinic's threshold — the shift is held for approval rather than closed. It closes when somebody with the approval permission approves it, and their name goes on the record.
A shortage and a surplus are treated the same way. A drawer that is 50 over is a drawer nobody can explain either.
After the Close
A closed shift is read-only — its counts, its reason and every payment stamped with it. It can be printed: the cashier, the branch, the times, the float, the totals by method, expected against counted, the difference, the reason and the approver, on your clinic's own template.
A Shift Left Open Overnight
A drawer opened yesterday and never closed is flagged wherever it appears, and the cashier is prompted to close it before taking more money. It is still open — just not on purpose.
Reading the Month
Differences by cashier shows, for a period: how many shifts each person worked, what they took, their total difference, and how many shifts needed approval.
Read the pattern, not the total. Somebody 5 short on Monday and 5 over on Tuesday nets to zero and has been careless twice; the shift count and the approval count beside the money are what say so.
Who Can Do What
| Action | Permission |
|---|---|
| Open, work and close your own shift | Open, work and close your own shift |
| Take a payment against it | Whatever the payment screen already needs |
| Approve a difference above the threshold | Approve a difference above the threshold |
| See other cashiers' shifts and the differences report | See other cashiers' shifts and the differences report |
| Print a closed shift | Your own, or any with the "see other cashiers' shifts" permission |
Two things worth setting deliberately:
- Approve is not given to anybody on upgrade. A cashier who can approve their own shortage is not a control. Give it to a supervisor.
- Open/work/close is given on upgrade to every role that already handles payments, so nothing stops working the morning after the release.
A closed cashier account with a drawer still open is not a dead end: somebody holding both "see all" and "approve" can close it for them, and the record keeps the original cashier.
Settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Shift required to take payment | Warn (default) or Block — see above |
| Cash difference threshold | Above this, a close is held for approval. Zero means any difference needs approval |
Related pages
- Taking Payments — recording the money that lands in the drawer
- Income and Expenses — where a cash-out is posted
- Staff and Roles — granting the three permissions