Cash drawer & shift report¶

At the end of a shift, the person leaving the desk counts the cash. Zitlin says what should be there, they say what is, and the difference is recorded against their name.

That difference is the whole feature. Everything else on these screens exists to explain how the expected figure was arrived at, so the person counting can tell a mistake from a discrepancy.

When more than one person works the same shift, the shift report rolls their drawers into one document — what the property took, and who moved it.

What it is not¶

It is not the night audit. The night audit closes a day and runs once, usually overnight. A cash drawer closes a shift and runs every time somebody hands over — three times a day at a property working three shifts. The two are independent: closing one never closes the other.

It is not bookkeeping. Nothing here posts to an accounting ledger. It answers one question — is the money actually in the till — and stops.

Your shifts¶

A shift is a named period of the day: Morning, Afternoon, Night, or whatever your property calls them. Zitlin sets the list for you, with a start time for each, when the feature is turned on. Tell your Zitlin contact how many shifts you run and when they start.

Two things follow from that list, and they are the reason it exists:

• Every cash bag joins one of them, chosen when it is opened. That is what lets several drawers on the same shift be reported together.
• The right one is already picked when a drawer is opened, from the clock. The cashier is confirming, not deciding.

The names are fixed rather than typed. A typed name groups by exact spelling, so "Morning", "morning" and one bad morning's typo become three different shifts that no report can put back together.

Opening a shift¶

The first person on tapes the drawer shut, counts what is already inside, and opens their shift with that figure.

Cash drawer, from the main menu, or the till icon in the shift banner.

One drawer, one person¶

Zitlin allows one open shift per person, and several people can have one at once. A hotel with a front desk and a restaurant till runs two side by side, counted separately, each answerable to whoever holds it.

Two people sharing one physical drawer is the one arrangement no software can help with: the difference at the end belongs to nobody. Two people working one shift is fine and normal — they take a bag each, and the shift report adds them up.

During the shift¶

The drawer screen shows what has passed through it so far.

Opening float            200
Cash taken in           +850
Cash paid out            -30
Guest deposits held     +500
─────────────────────────────
Expected in drawer     1,520

Not in the drawer
Card                     480

Cash taken in is prepayments, bills settled in cash, and event-space cash payments. Cash paid out is expenses paid in cash from the till.

Security deposits are counted but not collected. A cash deposit is in your drawer, so it is part of what you are expected to have; it is the guest's money, so it is not part of what the property took. It gets its own line for that reason — the four rows above the rule are what make the total below it, and without it the column would not add up. Returning a deposit takes it back out again, and the line can run negative on a shift that gave back more than it took. A card pre-auth appears nowhere at all — no money moved.

The Guest deposits held line appears only when there is something on it, so a property that takes no deposits sees the same three rows it always has.

Card, UPI and transfers are shown but never counted. No drawer moves when a guest taps a card, so they carry no difference — they are there to tick off against the card terminal's own batch total.

Closing a shift¶

Close shift, then count.

The difference appears as you type, not after you commit.

What a closed shift will not do¶

Once a shift is closed, its figures are frozen and no money can ever be added to it. Anything recorded afterwards — even backdated — belongs to whatever shift is open at the time.

That is deliberate, and it is what makes the count trustworthy:

• Editing an invoice a week later does not quietly change what somebody was asked to stand behind.
• A late payment lands in the next person's drawer, which is where the cash actually went.
• Nothing is locked. Reports stay live, bookings stay editable, and the closed shift simply stops being a place money can land.

A bill that was paid into a drawer somebody has already counted cannot be voided, un-settled or re-priced any more. Zitlin says whose drawer it was and when it was closed. Correct it against the current shift instead — the money was counted and signed for, and rewriting it afterwards would leave the signed report disagreeing with the bill behind it.

The shift report¶

Shift report, from the main menu — Admin, Accountant, Rooms Manager and Restaurant Manager.

One shift, one date, every bag on it. Where the drawer screen answers "is my till right", this answers "what did the property take between seven and three, and who moved it".

Provisional or Complete. The report is Complete only once every bag on the shift is closed. While one cashier is still working, the totals will still move — which is what stops a duty manager signing off a shift at 14:10 that gains another ₹400 at 14:20.

Export as PDF produces the same document for a file or an email.

A worked example: two clerks, one Morning shift¶

Priya opens the desk at 07:00. At 11:00 Daniel joins her for the busy check-out hour and takes a bag of his own. Both are on Morning.

Daniel's note: "Recounted twice. Gave change from the wrong pile at check-out."

At 15:15, with both bags closed, the duty manager opens Shift report → Morning → today and reads it top to bottom:

Morning · 12 August                              Complete

Total collected                                   31,600

  Cash                                            15,000
  Card, QR and transfers                          16,600
  Paid out                                           600

By staff
  Priya                                           22,900
  Daniel                                           8,700

Cash bags
  Priya    Counted     Expected 11,900   Counted 11,900
  Daniel   Counted     Expected  6,500   Counted  6,440

Four things they now know, none of which needed a phone call:

1. The shift took 31,600, of which 15,000 was cash they can go and count in the safe.
2. Priya moved 22,900 and Daniel 8,700 — so the desk was busier before eleven, which is a rota question, not a money one.
3. Daniel is 60 short and Priya is exact. The difference belongs to one named person on one named bag, not to "the front desk".
4. Daniel already said why. The note travels with the bag, so the conversation at 15:15 starts from an explanation rather than an accusation.

If they had opened the report at 14:30, while Daniel was still serving, it would have said Provisional and shown his bag as Still open — correct, and not yet something to sign.

Reviewing past counts¶

Shift history, from the report's toolbar — the same four roles.

Pick a date range, then filter to Did not balance to see only the shifts that came up short or over. That filter is the point of the screen: scanning a list of zeros is exactly the work the feature is meant to remove.

Each row shows who held the drawer, when it ran, what they counted, the difference, and their note.

Somebody went home without closing¶

An Admin can close a drawer on their behalf: open the shift from the history and Close it for them. The shift keeps its original owner — only the "counted by" line names the manager — so the difference stays attributed to whoever actually ran the till.

A drawer left open from an earlier day is sealed by the night audit instead, without a count. It shows as Never counted rather than as balanced, because nobody counted it and a zero difference would claim somebody had.

Making it compulsory¶

Settings → More → Staff → Require an open cash drawer

Off by default. Once on, no payment can be recorded until the person taking it has opened a shift; they are prompted to open one and the action then completes on its own.

That includes cards and transfers, not just cash. A card moves no drawer and has nothing to count, but a payment recorded with no bag open belongs to no shift and so appears in no report, ever — and a shift report that quietly omits the card machine is not a report of what the property took.

Where it is off, money recorded with no shift open is still recorded — it just belongs to nobody, and shows up that way for a manager to chase.

Common questions¶