Five till checks for the Christmas cash rush: voids, comps, cash and staff meals

Picture a busy December close: the drawer is £40 short, the tip jar looks light, and nobody remembers voiding table 12's drinks. The answer is already in your till records, if you know where to look.

Five checks cover the usual ways money leaves a restaurant, pub or cafe till: a nightly cash-up against what the till says you should hold, voids, comps and refunds reviewed by person and reason, discounts and "no sale" drawer opens, stock counted against sales on the lines that walk, and a written staff meal policy. Run them every night from late November, when cash volume rises and the rota fills with temporary staff. Last checked: 5 November 2026.

How does money go missing from a restaurant till?

Most losses are small, repeated and close to the till. Each common method leaves a trace in a different record, which is why one check alone is never enough.

Tips are a separate pot of money and need their own line at the cash-up (see below). Mixing them with the takings is how a missing tip jar turns into an argument nobody can settle.

Check 1: does tonight's cash match what the till expects?

The nightly cash-up compares the cash you count with the cash the till says you should hold. Every other check starts from it, so it comes first. Do it at close, with two people, before anyone goes home.

Expected cash = opening float + cash sales − cash refunds − cash paid out (petty cash, cash tips paid to staff)

Count the drawer, write the counted figure, and record the difference. Then apply a simple rule so nobody has to judge each night from scratch. These are thresholds we suggest, not a legal standard; set your own and write them down.

Two habits make the cash-up trustworthy:

• One drawer, one person, where you can. If four people share a drawer, a shortage belongs to nobody. Separate drawers or a named cash handler per shift turn a mystery into a record.
• Overs matter too. A drawer that is regularly over can mean sales are being rung in after the cash was taken, or short-changed guests. Treat a pattern of overs the same way as a pattern of shorts.

Check 2: who voided, comped or refunded, and why?

A void, comp or refund is legitimate most of the time. The check is not "were there any?" but "who did them, when, and with what reason?"

Most venues settle on three levels:

• Before the item is sent to the kitchen or bar: a correction. Any server can remove it.
• After it has been sent: a void. A manager approves it and picks a reason (guest changed mind, kitchen error, wrong table).
• After the guest has paid: a refund. Owner or manager only, back to the original card, never as cash out of the drawer unless the guest paid cash and is standing there.

Then read the report weekly, by person. Work out each person's voids, comps and refunds as a share of their own sales, and compare with the team.

Worked example. A team of six sells £42,000 ($56,000) in a fortnight and voids £630 ($840), so the team rate is 1.5%. One server sold £6,000 ($8,000) and voided £270 ($360), a rate of 4.5%, three times the team. That is the conversation to have, calmly and with the records in front of you. It may be a training problem, a broken printer at their station, or a kitchen that keeps sending the wrong dish. It may not.

A rule of thumb that keeps you consistent: look closer at anyone above twice the team rate for two fortnights running, and at any void or refund with no reason recorded.

Check 3: discounts, no-sales and open-price items

These three lines are where a till can be used to move money quietly.

• Discounts. Count staff and manager discounts per person per week. A staff discount used at 9pm on a Saturday by someone who was not working is a question worth asking.
• No-sale opens. Every time the drawer opens without a sale, it should be for a reason (change for the float, a paid-out with a slip). A server with eight no-sales a shift when the team averages one is the pattern.
• Open-price or "misc" items. An open item lets someone ring a £2 "misc" for a £9 cocktail. Remove open items you do not need, or limit them to managers.

If you take card payments only at the table, the cash risk shrinks, but voids, comps and refunds still need the same weekly review.

Check 4: does stock used match what you sold?

Cash that never reaches the till shows up later as stock that left with no sale against it. You do not need a full stock take every week for this. Pick the five to ten lines that are easy to sell off the books and expensive to lose:

• spirits and wine by the glass
• bottled beer and soft drinks at the bar
• steaks, fish and other high-cost proteins
• desserts and cakes sold at the counter
• coffee beans and milk in a cafe

Count those lines at the same time each week, compare usage with what the till sold, and investigate any line that is consistently short. The variance formula, count sheet and what a normal variance looks like are in our stock take template; the method is the same in the US.

Check 5: do you have a staff meal policy in writing?

Staff food is a benefit. Without written rules it is also a leak that no report shows, because a meal that is never rung in leaves no sale and no void, only missing stock.

The fix is not to stop feeding the team. It is to ring every staff meal through the till, so it appears in the sales and stock records, and to write down what is allowed. A copyable policy is below.

What does a small leak cost over a year?

There is no reliable public figure for theft in UK or US restaurants, so here is the arithmetic for your own venue. The table shows losing 0.5%, 1% or 2% of cash takings over a year, at three levels of weekly cash.

Every pound or dollar taken comes straight off profit. If you keep 5p of every £1 of sales as profit, replacing a £2,600 loss needs £52,000 of extra sales. In the US, replacing $3,640 at 5 cents on the dollar needs $72,800. That is why a ten-minute cash-up is worth more than most marketing you could buy in December.

How do you handle tips at the cash-up?

Keep tips out of the takings and count them as their own line.

• UK. The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires employers to pass all qualifying tips, gratuities and service charges to workers in full, and to keep records of tips and how they were shared for three years. Record card tips from the till and cash tips handed to the business at every cash-up, so you can show where each pound went. Our tronc and Tips Act guide covers allocation and deadlines.
• US. The Department of Labor's restaurant fact sheet says employees "must retain all of their tips, except to the extent that they participate in a valid tip pooling" arrangement. See our guide to tip pooling and tip-outs.

What can you do when the numbers point at one person?

The records show a pattern; they do not prove who took the money. Before you act:

• Gather the facts. Shifts worked, the drawer they used, the void and refund times, and who else was on.
• Follow a fair process. In the UK, that means an investigation and a disciplinary meeting in line with the Acas Code of Practice. In the US, check your state's rules and your own handbook.
• Be careful with deductions. In the UK, deductions from a till worker's pay for cash shortages are capped at one tenth of gross wages on any pay day, and need a contract term or written agreement (Employment Rights Act 1996, section 18). In the US, the Department of Labor says deductions for cash shortages or walk-outs are illegal where they take pay below the minimum wage, and an employer may not take them from tipped employees paid with a tip credit (DOL fact sheet 2). Several states go further.

Check with an employment adviser for your situation before you dismiss anyone or deduct pay.

The cash-up sheet and staff meal policy to copy

NIGHTLY CASH-UP                                   Date: [ ]  Shift: [ ]
Drawer / cash handler: [ ]            Counted by: [ ]  Checked by: [ ]

A. Opening float                                  [ ]
B. Cash sales (from the till's end-of-day report) [ ]
C. Cash refunds (attach slips)                    [ ]
D. Cash paid out (petty cash, receipts attached)  [ ]
E. Expected cash = A + B - C - D                  [ ]
F. Counted cash (notes [ ] + coins [ ])            [ ]
G. Difference = F - E                             [ ]   Over / Short
   Within £5/$5: record. £5-£20 / $5-$25: recount and check slips.
   Over £20/$25: manager recount, seal cash, review voids by person.

TIPS (kept separate from takings)
Card tips on the till report                      [ ]
Cash tips handed to the business                  [ ]
Cash tips paid out tonight (who, how much)        [ ]

TILL CHECKS
Voids after send: count [ ]  value [ ]  all with reason? Y/N
Comps: count [ ]  value [ ]  all with reason? Y/N
Refunds: count [ ]  value [ ]  all to original card? Y/N
Discounts: count [ ]  value [ ]
No-sale drawer opens: [ ]
Staff meals rung through: [ ]

Notes / actions: [ ]
Signed: [ ]                                       [ ]

STAFF MEAL AND DRINKS POLICY

1. Who: staff on a shift of [5] hours or more get one staff meal per shift.
2. What: choose from the staff meal list ([list items]) or [50]% off the menu
   for items under [£12 / $15]. Premium items ([steaks, seafood, specials]) are
   full price.
3. When: before or after service, at [time], not during service.
4. How: every staff meal and staff drink is rung through the till as a staff
   meal or staff discount by the person eating it, approved by the shift lead.
5. Drinks: soft drinks, tea and coffee are free on shift. Alcohol is not served
   to staff on shift. Off-shift staff pay [full price / staff discount].
6. Friends and family: staff discounts are for staff only.
7. Leftovers: food left at close is offered to the team only after the shift
   lead has logged it as waste.
8. Review: we review this policy every [six months] and tell everyone before
   anything changes.

Can TablePort handle this for you?

TablePort's POS puts most of these checks on one screen.

1. Comps, voids and refunds take one step each, with the reason and the person recorded, so the weekly review is a report, not a hunt through receipts.
2. Cash, voids, comps and tips reconcile on one screen at the end of the day, with accounting exports for your accountant.
3. The daily report per person shows hours, sales, tips, discounts, promotions and voids, so check 2 and check 3 take minutes.
4. The Stock add-on compares what you counted with what sales and recipes say should have gone.

The honest limit: the records show patterns; they do not prove who took the cash. That still needs a fair investigation. See the restaurant POS.