Cash handling policies and training can help prevent unnecessary restaurant losses. Here is a list of simple tips that can help any restaurant encourage proper cash handling
- Your policy manual and/or job description should address the specific responsibilities of all cash-handlers. A clear and detailed explanation of your policies and procedures should include a sign-off box for all employees to initial their agreement and understanding.
- Conduct a spontaneous and unscheduled "drawer audit" in which the full drawer is pulled, the register is "x'ed out," and a reconciliation is performed. This works best when done two to three times per month.
- In addition to the register drawer, do you have change banks? Sometimes when drawers are short, change banks are over, and vice versa. Do a check of both cash locations.
- Be fair. As long as more than one person has access to the drawer during a shift, you can not hold an individual, such as your bar manager, directly accountable for overs and shorts.
- The best way to ensure accountability is to have a cash handling seminar. This will help to ensure that your employees are taking all the relevant steps to handle money properly. Cover basics techniques like properly facing bills, calling out bills, and counting back change aloud.
- Once you are sure your employees have the skills to properly handle cash, implement a motivational incentive or contest. Have your employees think of the prize, the contest, and the rules. It can be as simple as keeping track of how long the bar or a register can go without over/shorts. Award a prize to the shift, team, or individual who can go the longest without over/shorts.
Download our overs and shorts tracking sheet to keep from getting nickel & dime'd to death.
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