Understanding Registers and its Sessions

Cash management is crucial for every restaurant. In Prime - Registers - facilitate cash flow through the store-front's  in a structured and organized way.

Through this document, we'll walk through various use-cases where Registers play an important role in restaurant operational cash-flow: 

Capturing "Opening Cash" at the start of a shift 

When a cashier opens a register, he/she is expected to count the cash in the Cash Drawer and put it as the "Opening Cash" balance. 

This servers a contract b/w the cashier and restaurant that the Cash Drawer had this amount when the shift begin.

Capturing "Closing Balance" at the end of the shift 

After the shift is completed, the cashier is expected to re-count the cash in the Cash Drawer and put it as the "Closing Cash" balance.

This servers as a contract b/w the cashier and restaurant that the Cash Drawer has this amount by the time the shift ended. 

"Withdraw cash" in the middle of the shift

Withdraw cash is used to remove cash from an open register. 

This is typically done when there is too much cash in the drawers and some needs to be removed to a safe or another secure location. 

This can also be used in other use-cases like making a payment to someone. For e.g. the store ran out of tissues - and had to make an ad-hoc purchase from the nearest shop. 

In either case, when cash is withdraw from the Cash Drawer - it needs to be logged into the system.

"Deposit cash" in the middle of the shift

Deposit cash is used to add cash to an open register. 

The cashier can add cash to the Cash Drawer and log into into register session with a comment.

Computing "received " v/s "expected" collection in a shift 

Now, once the shift is over and the data has been entered to the system. The system creates a corresponding Register Session for this Shift. 

At the Register Session level, a report is generated (which the store manager would usually look at) that computes the following: 

• Received - This is the difference b/w "closing" and "opening" balance of the Cash Drawer
• Expected - This is the total from the Bills that have been generated in the Register Session
• Difference - This is variance b/w Received and Expected.