Some customers use the self-checkout kiosks, pay for their groceries with cash, and then walk out the door without getting their loose change from the coin receptacle.
From an accounting standpoint, what does a store do with that? They can’t claim it as profit or earnings, but they can’t hold it forever for the customers, since most of these customers will never come back for their missed change. How is this recorded on the accounting ledgers?
I don’t imagine there’s any need to account for anything; the next customer gets it.
I would imagine that if they had to deal with it they’d simply drop the loose change into one of those ubiquitous donation tins. Mostly the next shopper pockets it.
When I was in retail the amounts were logged when and where they where found then it went into an employee fund account. If someone came back with a confermable claim they got thier money back. The account was used for pizza parties and such. There where various ways that acount was funded such as profit from recyclables. I don’t know the tax implications.
It would be recorded in an overs and shorts account (assuming it wasn’t added into the staff pizza fund tin as others suggested). Which is the same place one would record any other cashier’s till having either too much or too little cash at the end of the day.
So yes, it actually would increase the company’s earnings (though in the long term you really want your overs and shorts to net to zero).
When I worked in a pub, way back before automatic tills, each member of staff had their own till for their shift and it was balanced before they left at the end. Since rounds were calculated on the fly and change worked out each time, there were always going to be discrepancies. As managers, we were far more concerned with ‘overs’ than ‘unders’ (so long as they weren’t too big).
The reasoning was that if a barman/maid was on the fiddle, they would be far more likely to end the shift with too much cash in the till than too little.
I have an account for “Misc. Revenue” … as long as it’s not to big and I document what that revenue is … I don’t think there’s a problem. The IRS standard is “normal and necessary” … and in general I think they don’t really care if you overstate your taxable income.
I recently felled a tree and sold the firewood, it was a one-time thing so I just included the revenue in my miscellaneous account. Yes, it was included in earnings and I did pay the proper income tax on the money.
Technically these amounts should be recorded as liabilities due to the customer.
In most states when you have amounts due to others that haven’t been claimed in normally 7 years, the business is required to escheat those amounts to the State, meaning they send the money to the state treasurer. The state treasurer is then responsible for making notifications of money that belongs to people in the state, normally you’ll see a few times a year in the Sunday paper or on a website several pages in very small print listing out people that the state has their money and they should contact the state if they want to claim it. Eventually, if no one ever claims it from the state it goes into the state coffers.
Most of these items come from banks or other businesses and represent
- uncleared checks (never cashed by the payees)
- dormant bank accounts
- credit balances in accounts receivables never claimed
- refunds owed never claimed
- etc.
Now in practical situations as described by the OP, the loose change in the self check out is not identifiable as to who it belongs to, so as others have pointed out it is either an overage in the drawer and recorded as income, or the next customer takes it.
When I worked in retail, small change left by customers either went into a donation tin (there was usually one on the counter for whatever cause head office was supporting at the time) or it went into the till and was simply counted as an overage at the end of the day.