Cash float

A cash float is the money you put in the till before you open so you can give change to the first customers. It is not takings — it is the shop’s own cash, lent to the drawer for the day. At close you count everything in the drawer, take the float back out, and what is left should equal your cash sales. If it does not, the drawer is over or short.

The cash-drawer formulas

A worked example

A café opens with a $150 float: five $10 notes, eight $5 notes, thirty $1s and $30 in smaller coins. During the day it takes $1,240 in cash sales. The manager took $30 out of the till to pay for a milk delivery and kept the receipt.

1. Expected cash: $150 + $1,240 − $30 = $1,360.
2. At close the drawer is counted: $1,352.
3. Over or short: $1,352 − $1,360 = −$8, so $8 short.
4. The $150 float is set aside for tomorrow and $1,352 − $150 = $1,202 is banked.

Swap the notes and coins for the denominations in your own currency; the arithmetic does not change. An $8 shortfall on its own is usually a miscounted change; the same shortfall every day on the same shift is a pattern worth looking into.

How big should a float be?

Large enough to give change through your first hours of trading, small enough that it is not a temptation or a risk. Look at how your customers pay: if most pay by card or mobile money, a small float is enough; if many pay cash with large notes, you need more small notes and coins. Think about the change you give most often — a café selling $3.50 coffees needs plenty of coins, while a salon charging $45 needs more $5 and $10 notes. Adjust after a few weeks if you keep running short of change or never touch half the float.

Why it matters for a small business

Without a fixed float, nobody can say what the drawer should hold at the end of the day, so cash mistakes and cash theft both disappear into the noise. With one, every close becomes a quick check: count, compare, record the difference. Over weeks, that record shows whether a till is reliably balanced, whether a particular shift has problems, and whether your float is the right size.

Common mistakes

• Not counting the float at open. If the float is wrong at the start, every number after it is wrong too.
• Banking the float. Taking the whole drawer to the bank leaves nothing to give change tomorrow, and mixes the float into takings.
• Paying expenses from the till without a record. Every paid-out needs a receipt in the drawer, or it looks like a shortage.
• Many people, one drawer. When everyone uses the same drawer, nobody is responsible for a difference.
• Letting the float drift. A float that changes daily makes over and short impossible to judge.

How it relates to other terms

The float is the starting line of the end-of-day Z-report cash check: float plus cash sales is what the drawer should hold. Cash differences are the cash-side equivalent of inventory shrinkage — money your records say you have that is not there. And your cash average order value is a good guide to the notes and coins the float should contain.