Before you count
Do the preparation first, so that the count itself is quick and you are not interrupted. Stop taking sales, or agree a cut-off time and note it. Make sure every order is finished or deliberately left on hold: an order paid but not completed is a common cause of a difference. Print or open the day's sales report from your system, so you know what the shop thinks it took.
- Agree a cut-off and stop new sales.
- Complete or park every open order.
- Open the day's report from the till system.
- Count in the same place each day, with the door locked, and have two people if you can.
- Write down the opening float so you know what the cash should be.
Cash, card and bank
Count the cash drawer and take out the float. What is left is the day's cash takings. Compare it with the cash the system says was taken. Then do the same for card: run the end-of-day report on your card machine and compare the total with the card sales in your system. Bank transfers should be checked against your bank statement, preferably the next working day.
A difference of a few pence is rounding or a keying slip. A bigger one needs tracing before you go home, or on the next opening, while memory is fresh. Check the likely causes first: a sale taken on the wrong payment method, a refund paid in cash that was not entered, or a payment split that was keyed wrongly.
- Count the drawer, remove the opening float and write down the cash takings.
- Compare with the cash sales in your system, and note any difference.
- Run the card machine's end-of-day report and compare it with card sales.
- Check bank transfers against the bank statement, usually the next working day.
- Write down every difference with the reason, even when it is small.
Trade-ins and returns
In a phone shop, cash goes out as well as in. A trade-in paid in cash, or a refund on a return, reduces the drawer without being a sale. Check each one against its order: the device recorded by IMEI, the value given, and how the customer was paid. A customer who traded in a phone against a purchase pays only the difference, so the drawer reflects that net amount, not the full price of the new phone.
Confirm that every returned or traded-in unit has been put back into stock or sent for repair, with its IMEI. Stock that is not recorded is the next day's mystery.
- Match every cash payout for a trade-in to an order and an IMEI.
- Match every refund to the original sale.
- Check that part-exchange values were taken off the price, not paid out twice.
Expenses
Small expenses paid from the till, such as a courier, milk or a part bought from the shop next door, need a receipt and an entry. Without them, the drawer is short and nobody knows why. Keep a simple rule: nothing leaves the drawer without a note saying what it was for, and a receipt where there is one.
Record expenses against the day they were paid. If you pay regular business costs, such as monthly bills, decide how those are recorded so they do not appear in the daily cash as a surprise.
Reserved funds and deposits
Not all money in the building is yours to spend. Money you have set aside for a supplier payment, or money you hold on behalf of someone else, needs to be kept apart from the day's takings. If you pay a supplier from the drawer, record it, and record whether it came from today's sales or from funds you put aside earlier. Mixing the two is how a shop thinks it made a loss or a profit it did not.
Gadgets POS closes the day with that split built in. Its daily closing report separates money taken in the shop that day from funds you have marked as reserved, so a supplier payment from reserved cash does not distort the takings. See daily closing, VAT and expenses.
Closing across several shops
With more than one shop, give every shop the same routine and the same cut-off, so the numbers can be compared. Decide who closes each shop, who checks it, and where the cash goes. A system that can close several shops together, with the figures side by side, makes it far easier to spot the shop that is out.
Gadgets POS lets you run closing across several shops in one go and filter reports to one shop or roll them up. See multi-store POS and the EPOS page for UK phone shops. At the end, bank the cash, lock the safe and write down the figures you will check tomorrow. Keep the closing record, with the differences and the reasons, signed by whoever counted, so that you can answer your accountant's questions months later.
How Gadgets POS helps at closing time
Gadgets POS has a daily closing report that totals sales, trade-ins, returns and expenses and splits today's takings from reserved funds, plus bulk closing across shops. It does not replace counting the cash, so use the checklist above alongside it.
About this guide: it is written by the team that makes Gadgets POS, a POS system for phone, gadget and repair shops. It is general guidance, not legal, tax or financial advice, so check your own position with your accountant, your insurer and gov.uk. It contains no invented statistics, and any worked example is an illustration with made-up numbers. Last reviewed 10 October 2026.