What is a cash float?

The float is not sales money. It is the starting cash, usually in small bills and coins, that lets the first customers pay with a $20 or $50 without the cashier running out of change. At the end of the shift the same amount is taken back out before the rest of the cash is counted as takings.

How much to keep depends on how many cash sales you take and the size of a typical note. Small cafes often run $100 to $200; busy bars and convenience stores more. The mix matters as much as the total: mostly fives, ones or toonies and loonies, and coin rolls, not twenties. Keep the float the same every day so counts are easy to check.

The float is where most cash errors hide. If the float is short in the morning, the shift will look short at night. A simple rule fixes most of it: the closing manager counts and bags tomorrow's float, and the opener counts it again before entering it in the POS. If the two counts differ, you know when the money went missing.

In the SeroPOS app you enter the float when you open the shift. Drawer, then Open/Close Register, asks for the amount (the help text reads 'Open a shift with the cash float, or close it with the counted total'). At close you enter the counted total and a closing note. The back office Register Report shows each shift's opening cash, totals by method and the closing count.