Have you ever worked for a company that required a cashier to pay if their register did not balance?

I have heard of it, but have never experienced it. When I was a hotel desk clerk and had to balance out my cash drawer at the end of the shift, we just posted the overage or shortage if it couldn’t be resolved. It was often rectified on the next shift. I’ll confess though; there were a few times when I was short by small change that I threw in out of my own pocket. If it was an overage, it went on record.

As a manager, I’ve had to terminate two employees for falsifying records. In both cases, the amount was ~$100. You would think that these two were fools to risk their reputation and future employment for such a paltry amount. It turned out not to be the case for one of them.

Less than a year later, I attended a wedding of a friend who left the hotel side to go work for a local casino that was closely affiliated with our company. At the dinner reception, I sat next to an HR manager for the casino company who mentioned that they had recently hired one of these former employees. I asked her what his job was, and she said he works in the cash cage (a casino cashier.) I was flabbergasted. Not only did they not do a reference check to find out that he was not eligible for rehire, but no one bothered to call us for fish for the details.

I worked at a groncey store some time back and cashiers were allowed to be up to $2.00 off, either over or short. If they exceeded this amount, there was a set procedure that was followed. If shoratges/overages continued they would eventually be terminated…

The only retail company I worked for couldn’t do this becuase we all shared the computers. I also can’t remember us ever being off by more than 10 cents either direction. When we were off, we’d either take the extra and put it aside for another night when we were low, or use the change we had set aside to make up the difference. Occasionally we’d toss in a bit of our own change if we didn’t have any set aside. If I remember right, we did that becuase it was a lot less hassle to toss in a couple pennies than to deal with whatever steps were involved with coming up short; I don’t think the company actually required it.

yup and I always made damn sure I was never short, it was for a convience store and never had to pay anything. You got to count and make sure your giving back the right change. A way of making sure the money you are handed is what you were given is if you are handed a $10 bill you lie it accross the draw horizontally while you are making change. I always did the math in my head and didn’t always rely on the register so that way if you accidentally put in the wrong number you knew exactly what to give back. If someone didn’t want their pennies I would just put them in the draw. I also made sure my change over sheets were written in pen so no one could just erase and change something with out me knowing.

I’ve worked at one or place like this. One place had no computer system and an irrational manager. If anybody’s drawer was short over a dollar or so, she accused them of stealing. At another place, three bucks over or under was acceptable. Anything more than that, and the management either accused you of stealing or gave you a lecture on being more careful. When I was a cashier there I usually did about $1500 per day in sales. So in other words, the margin of error could be no more than .2%. Not two percent, but two tenths of a percent.

I’ve been working in the same retail store for almost a year now. I’ve only once had my register balance with no overages or shortages. We all use the same registers and the computer system so there’s no real way for them to tell (short of watching the security cameras) if anyone’s stealing. One time there was a big problem, but when they looked at it the next day from the management access to the comptuers and all, it was obvious to them what happened. So we just close down the register and let the office manager look at any issues that may arise.

Zellers in Canada. -used to anyway. We all had our own cash drawers and floats.

It’s not required at my job, but I know the audit lady will throw in a few cents, sometimes a couple dollars if the drawer is short at the end of the night. It’s easier for her to do that then try to “find” where 10 cents was misplaced.

I worked at a supermarket and I was like @klutzaroo it was rare that the drawer balanced to the exact 5 cents (no pennies in oz). The rule was $5.00 in either direction, no biggie, more than that and it had to be reimbursed if it was short. If it was over it went into the employee Christmas party fund. I didn’t have a problem with that, it kept me on my toes and to be very careful. So many tourists came through and many seemed to try to confuse the issue, I often wondered if they were trying to throw me off to try to make a quick buck.

Yes, and this is why I always give it back when they give me too much in change.

Yes. I got out of it because I said then if I’m over that I get to keep it.