Good till procedures
Even with high-end EPOS tills there are two rules that I abide by:
- Tills very rarely balance to the penny, so if one does I become very suspicious.
- A till that is “over” is as bad as a till that is “under”.
By employing good till and cash handling procedures, which all staff must adhere to, one can minimise the opportunities a dishonest member of staff has to steal from you. The first rule will help you to understand that mistakes do happen (small errors in change giving, sticky bank notes etc) even you can get it wrong sometimes, for instance incorrectly “floating” the tills prior to service. The second rule teaches you to look at inconsistencies in transactions as under-ringing a till and not having the opportunity to lift the cash may result in a till being “over”.
Top Tips – have a member of staff verify the float at the start of every shift. and invest in a spare till drawer insert to use when there is a shift change or if you are very busy and wish to take significant amounts of takings away to a secure location such as the office safe.
Sometimes No Sales are No Sales
I am of the opinion that one should not disable the “no sale” function from your cash register(s). Check every “no sale” record, for every member of staff, when you cash up your till(s) and record them. If a member of staff is using the “no sale” function to put money into the till for them to illegally remove later you’ll be able to spot patterns of activity which support this. Whilst there are legitimate reasons to open the till without making a sale, such as providing change for games machines, the law of averages dictates there should be an even split of these transactions across all tills and all members of staff. If incidences of “no sales” are high (or show signs of increasing) for a particular member of staff, then the chances are they are “till dipping”. Spotting unusual till usage is often the first step to “catching them red-handed”.
It is a legal requirement that your customers can see exactly what is rung into the till, and if you go to the HMCR website they ask members of the public to blow the whistle on VAT dodgers and one thing they ask them to report is under ringing items in to the till. Not only do you suffer the loss of money from dishonest staff, but in some cases their activities can trigger unwarranted attention from HMRC.
Pricing
There are differing views over the way pubs determine the pricing of their products, some price to the penny and some use “silver band” pricing, whereby products are priced at integers of 5p or 10p, thus eliminating the use of 1p and 2p coins. This makes pricing rounds easy for staff and customers alike and allows pub managers and owners to cross-subsidise products to ease the pain of price rises. (Despite this, you’ll still end up with copper in your till as customers pay for their purchases using all denominations.)
Whichever pricing method you use, you should be aware that “till dippers” love easy prices say £3 or even better £2.50 a shot or pint. (Of course this cannot be avoided at times if you are running a price promotion for example.) As these roughly equate to approximately three for a tenner or exactly four to a tenner, they can keep under ringing and lift the cash. However this should not deter you from using “silver band” pricing as the less savvy ones will under ring all night and then try to lift the cash towards the end of the night, which is much harder to do when the bar is busy, unless they have an accomplice at the bar to whom they slip the cash. Clever ones always take the cash first – when they start their shift and the bar is quieter, they then under ring to match the amount they have taken so never over float you tills and keep taking higher value notes out of the till throughout the day and night.
If your till is over then you might have an “under ringer” who tries to take at the end of the night but has failed to do so for what ever reason and if your till is down then the till dipper who takes the cash up front has probably not had enough opportunities to under ring to the amount they have taken. The more your till is over the more worried you should be as this is an indication of how much money they are normally taking off you per shift.