I recently had a Christmas job in a computer store. It was not my first time in retail but it was my first time as a retail cashier.
I worked in hotels and other small businesses (part time) where we cashed out but it was fairly simple. We ran a report that said, how much we took in and then counted that amount from our drawer and what was left over should’ve been how much we started out with.
But with this computer store, we were given $500 to start.
Then we worked for 8 hours. If you took in too much money, you just handed your bills to the manager. We didn’t count them. We just gave them to him/her, and then she would go in the office with another manager and they’d count it together.
Then you’d get back a slip of paper saying you gave the manager that much.
At the end of day, you went to the back office and brought up the POS (Point of sale).
You entered your code, and the number of hundreds, fifties, twenties, etc etc, all the way to pennies (and any drops made)
(For instance, if you had 20 one hundred dollar bills, you’d enter 20, not 2,000)
Then when you entered what was in your drawer you hit done.
If it balanced, you were fine, if you were off, even a penny, you’d have to call a manager who’d unlock your code and you’d see how much you were off.
I was just wondering if this was typical of retail places?
It seemed like a pretty bad system. I mean besides the fact you had no real control over your money, if you had to make a drop, (give the manager excess money) and I also didn’t like the fact you didn’t count your money, rather you simply entered the number of bills.
So my question is, if you worked retail, how did you cash out? What was your system like?
And was it a good system or one prone to “errors” or possible theft?