Ok, Ive just started training on a cash register at a bar I work at. Its a Casio QT 2000. They are telling me that there is no function that will calculate change owed (say for example that the total comes to 5.50 and they pay me 20 and I enter the amount paid and it tells me that 14.50 is owed in change) They say you have to calculate change yourself (ie, calculate owed amounts either in my head or use a calculator).
This strikes me as being ridiculous, as this seems to be a HIGHLY inaccurate and untrustworthy way of using the thing. But since no one else seems to care enough to find where they stashed the manuals, and since there doesnt seem to be an online manual on the casio web site, Im turning to the SD.
Has anyone used this machine? Or one like it? IS THERE a “change” function? If so, what is it?
Not familiar with the specific register you’re working with, but on the only electronic register I’ve used, after you’ve totaled the purchase, and it tells you the total is, say, $5.50, if the customer hands you a twenty, you enter 20.00, then hit Cash Tendered. The drawer pops open, and the display shows “$14.50,” indicating the change due to the customer.
A cash register that doesn’t tell you how much change to give? In today’s math illiterate society?
I work at Wal-Mart, and I found out that most of the cashiers couldn’t calculate change correctly in their heads in a pinch. It happened when I was working on a cash register that is given to a wide variety and abundance of malfunctions, and when it repeatedly kept double and triple scanning a single item, in spite of my best efforts to keep the bar code away from the scanner, resulting in my having to void the same item a dozen times, his bill ultimately came to $13.34. He gave me a $20. I told some of my coworkers the story and then said, “Quick, calculate the change.” Eyes would roll into heads as they tried to do the mental math before they finally said, “I don’t know.”
I had actually forgotten the actual total bill and reconstructed it by mentally subtracting the change from $20, btw…
So, if most people can’t do simple addition and subtraction in their heads, I think the idea of a register that doesn’t do it for you is extremely dangerous.
Other way around. We used to insist that the cashiers ignore the displayed change in order to improve accuaracy.
We found too many cashiers with nervous fingers hitting 100.00 or 11.00 for 10.00, for example, then giving back change for 11.00 or getting totally flustered when the change due line said 97.66 when they knew that the customer had only handed them a ten.
Our policy was that you started with the amount totalled and then counted out the change aloud in increasing increments–just like the old days.
Total 13.34
Tendered 20.00
Saying:
*Cashier's actions:* Total is 13.34
* (picking out a penny) * 13.35
* (picking out a nickel) * 13.40
* (picking out a dime) * 13.50
* (picking out 2 quarters) * 14.00
* (picking out a dollar) * 15.00
* (picking out a five) * 20.00
Then, to double check, counting out to the customer in the same way.
In fact, it drives me nuts to have some cashier grab a handful of change and set it on my palm with the implicit understanding that we will both accept that they keyed the right numbers for amount tendered and that they plucked out the right change from the drawer. I don’t accept it and I don’t appreciate being made to feel as though I am holding up the line because I choose to count it before I walk away.
I have no problems doing the math in my head, and in fact everyone at the place does it that way. I just got into an arguement about wether or not it should be able to do so or not, with the waitress that was teaching me how to use the thing, and I just want to prove her wrong and go “neener, neener, neener” at her. Petty, but what can I say. 
I work at McDonald’s (I’m only 16, ya know… after 2 years there i can’t make as much there as i would starting anywhere else…) and although our registers do tell us the right amount of change, there are times when we need to know how to count back change…
like 1) when we wish to cheat on our Drive through times… The employees are on a timer from the time they first hit a button when taking your order to the time they close their drawer (It’s supposed to be stopped when you get your food, but no one does it then.) So people will pretend the order’s paid out, and then try to count back change after opening the drawer with a key. (IMHO, this is a retarded way of doing things. The slip that prints out after drawer-changing the cash drawer has a statistic for unauthorized drawer opens, (using the key). “Hmm, steve, you have 284 unauthorized drawer opens? OK, I’m a manager who doesn’t deserve my position. I’ll let it slide.”) However, the amount of change given back, even if it’s wrong, usually doesn’t matter. <stereotype> Usually, it’s only old people who count their change </stereotype>. In the drive-through, it’s even worse, because people usually just throw their change anywhere in an effort to get to the next window. Irresponsible employees are always talking about how much money they got from short-changing customers… I don’t do anything about it b/c it’s impossible to prove, and those people are usually gone w/in 2-3 months anyways due to their overall lack of irresponsibility and laziness… like habitual tardiness, not showing up w/o calling (1st offense=1wk suspension, 2nd=usually fired, thank God…
Anyways… long-winded request to all patrons of anywhere that has a cash register and underpaid employees: count your change.
I hate that approach because it is so slow. I’m perfectly capable of telling at a glance that a penny, a nickel, a dime and two quarters is 66 cents. I hate it when I have to wait an eternity for a cashier to count it out.
To the OP, I don’t know the machine itself, but what happens if you enter 2000 <cash>, or <cash> 2000 <Enter> (for a $20.00 tender)?
All systems I’ve come across will display the Change Due.
Some systems can be configured such that hitting the tender key twice means <Exact amount>. I remember being in Wal*Mart when a cashier suddenly siezed up because the system told her that no change was due when there obviously was. I said, “you pressed <Cash> <Cash> didn’t you?”, and she nodded. She then had no choice but to believe me when I told her the change amount because she certainly wasn’t capable of working it out.
Well, they are not supposed to do it slowly, although I guess if they’ve never been trained, it would take some time. 
I still challenge even the most competent cashier to say the sequence of totals you gave in less than 10 seconds. There are seven totals to give. So it will take about 9 seconds longer than I want.
Personally I don’t like when cashier’s count out the change. I can check my dollars quicker than they can and if they stole a dime from me, it doesn’t really matter. If they’re that desperate for a dime, I say let them have it.
I have worked on cash registers that did have a change calculating function and registers that didn’t. I am not familiar with the type of register you’re talking about Rabbit but older registers often don’t have a change function. Bars, fruit and veg shops and butcher’s shops = no change function; large supermarket chains = change function, IME, but YMMV.
I’m so happy I learnt on a non-calculate the change for you register, because it’s a useful and easy skill to have, especially when a customer gives you a $20 note, then after you’ve entered $20.00, they say “I’ve got the 45 cents, too”. I don’t find it hard at all, but that’s because I was shown how to do it. I see many other people my age and younger completely mystified about what to do when an occasion arises where they have to calculate it themselves.
When I have used a register that doesn’t calculate the change, I count back quickly. When I’ve used the ones that do it for me, I just say the total amount of change and hand it to the customer.
You folks down South really do talk slow!
I haven’t run a register in 23 years and I just pulled some change out of my pocket and did it in about three seconds. Since the counting can be done while the cashier is pulling out the coins–which the cashier must do, regardless–(removing one check point, but accomplishing the basic task), there is really no loss of time–unless the cashier drawls over each coin. And the one or two (not nine) seconds that are “lost” on each transaction are more than recovered by not having a three to five minute fight with a customer who thinks the change handed them was wrong.
And, as Goo noted, the customer who suddenly comes up with some extra coins after the machine displays the “change” will have less chance to confuzzle the cashier who is used to counting out the change.
Since I’m long out of the business, you don’t have to worry about being stuck in my line or the line of my employees.
Google for the Casio QT 2000; I can’t find specifications, but it’s essentially an all-electronic, programmable, touch-pad type register, intended for food service operations. I’d be astonished if it didn’t have the ability to compute the change due!
So Mrs. Rick and I are at We be Toys just before Christmas one year. Purchase $27.85. I hand cashier two $20s.
Cashier © Oh no!
Me What?
C I put in that you gave me correct change
Me No problem, that function is just for your convience, the register doesn’t care if I gave you exact change or $40 as long as the correct amount of money is in the till at the end of your shift.
C No that can’t be right, I have to call a manager
Me Whatever
Manager comes over after a 5 minute wait
C He gave me two $20s and I put in the register that he gave me correct change what do I do?
Manager No problem just give him the change
Cashier looks at manager with the same intelligent look as a golden retriever.
Manager Here I will show you.
Manager takes piece of paper from pocket, and writes $40.00 underneath that puts a minus sign, and writes $27.85 and starts to draw a line under the problem
Me Excuse me, but a nickel and a dime makes $28.00 2 ones makes $30.00, and a ten will make $40.00, and I will be out of here.
Now both cashier and manager give me that golden retriever look. Manager goes back to complex subtraction problem. 20 seconds later says give him $12.15. :smack:
It must be infectious, because I’m English.
It was easy enough. Just hit subtotal then amout given then cash.
Change amount provided. And NO one at the place knew that… sad really.
But I DID get to say “neener neener neener” so Im happy.
Rick, anti-theft measures on cash registers are so high and training is so low that a lot of times the employee is scared to death to do anything but the most proper procedure. These employees are not encouraged to think- they are encouraged to be mindless cashier machines. So when something in the “program” goes off, the whole “machine” freezes up.
Add to this the fact that a popular scam is for a person to change the money they give you at the last minute, and then take advantage of your confusion to offer their “solution”, leading you to a short drawer at the end of the night.
I’m a smart girl, and I worked reg a long time. I’m also guilty of doing stuff that appears to be mind-numbingly stupid at times. All I can say is it is a different world when you are behind the register.
Now, you are officially permitted to be totally insufferable at work for at least a month.
I understand that even sven, believe me I am constantly amazed at the lack of training of retail and cashier personal. I really didn’t fault the cashier for calling the manager. This is what they should have done when presented with something that they did not know how to handle.
What both my wife and I found mind boggling (both of us having worked retail before electronic registers) was that the manager had to write down a subtraction problem and do the math one column at a time. I mean $27.85 out of $40. isn’t exactly Einstein level mathmatics. A security camara would have shown my wife and I standing there :rolleyes: :eek:
Walking out of that store, both my wife and I swore that our kids would know how to count change. I am happy to report that they do.