Recording card payments from the bank terminal
How a workshop cashier records card payments at an Achekam till that is not connected to the card machine, and checks them against the X and Z reports.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Automotive businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
On most workshop counters there are two machines side by side: the till, and the card terminal the bank supplied. The cashier keys the amount into one, then into the other. Usually the two agree. Sometimes a digit slips, a declined card is recorded as paid, or a payment is taken on the terminal and never recorded at all. Nobody notices until the bank settlement does not match the day's takings, and by then the customer is long gone.
The answer is not to pretend the two machines are one. It is a short, consistent routine that makes every card payment visible twice and compares the two at the end of each shift. This article explains how card payments work at an Achekam till and how to build that routine.
Two machines that do not talk to each other
Achekam's till is not connected to any card machine. There is no card terminal integration, and none for services such as Yoco, SnapScan or Zapper. More broadly, the till does not drive card terminals, receipt printers, cash drawers, scales or a customer display.
So a card payment happens on the bank's terminal, and the cashier then records it at the till from the terminal's slip. The till trusts the cashier's entry, which is exactly why the order of steps matters.
Recording a card payment from the slip
The safe order at the counter is always the same:
- Ring up the job or the parts at the till so the total is fixed.
- Key that exact total into the card terminal.
- Wait for the terminal to print an approved slip. A declined or cancelled slip is not a payment.
- Only then record the card payment at the till, matching the slip's amount.
- Keep the merchant copy of the slip with the day's paperwork.
If a customer splits a bill across two cards, or between card and cash, record each card payment separately, one per approved slip, so the count of slips and the count of card payments agree.
Refunds follow the same two-machine logic. A supervisor or manager refunds all or part of the sale at the till with a reason, which creates its own document linked to the original sale and puts any returned parts back into stock. Because the till cannot reach the card machine, the money itself goes back to the card on the bank's terminal. Keep the terminal's refund slip with a printout of the till's refund document so the pair can be checked together. A customer can also dispute a card payment with their bank well after the visit; Visa's dispute resolution page for merchants explains what a dispute is, why cardholders raise them and how a business can prevent and respond to them.
Card takings in their own account
Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step, with each payment method going to its own account. Card payments, along with QR payments, go to account 1060, separate from cash (1050) and bank transfers (1000).
That separation is what makes checking possible. When the bank pays out the day's card takings, the amount it deposits can be compared with what built up in account 1060, rather than with a mixed total of everything the counter took.
Checking slips against the X report
Achekam gives you two reports for a till, both available as PDFs:
- the X report, a live view of an open till at any point during the day; and
- the Z report, frozen at cash-up.
Use the X report as the midday check. Run the card terminal's own running total, run the till's X report, and compare the card figures. A difference found at lunchtime can usually be traced to the slip that caused it while the cashier still remembers the customer. The same difference found the next morning is much harder to explain.
Closing the day
At cash-up, the cashier counts the cash drawer by notes and coins, and the server works out the expected cash, records the difference and posts it to cash over and short. Card payments are not counted in the drawer; they are checked against the terminal's end-of-day total and the approved slips.
A branch's business day is then closed by a supervisor or manager who was not a cashier that day. Closing freezes the day's Z reports, payments, VAT by rate and differences, so nobody can quietly tidy up the figures afterwards.
| Who | Does what at the end of the day |
|---|---|
| Cashier | Prints the terminal's end-of-day total, gathers the slips, counts the cash |
| Cashier | Compares the terminal total with the till's card total on the X report |
| Supervisor or manager | Reviews any difference and the reason given |
| Supervisor or manager who did not work a till that day | Closes the business day |
A daily routine for the cashier
- Start of shift: check the terminal's date and time and that it is logged on to the right merchant account.
- Each card sale: till total first, approved slip second, record third.
- Midday: compare the terminal's running total with the X report.
- End of shift: terminal end-of-day total, slips in order, cash counted, differences explained in writing.
- Next morning: someone in accounts checks the bank's card settlement against the card payments recorded in account 1060.
When you would rather the customer paid without a slip
If a business sets up a payment gateway, a customer can instead pay at the till by scanning a QR code for that gateway's pay page, and the payment counts only after the server has confirmed it with the gateway. That avoids keying an amount twice, at the cost of the customer using their phone.
For customers paying by transfer, see bank transfers at the service counter; for Kenyan customers who prefer mobile money, M-Pesa prompts when a customer collects their car explains the prompt-to-phone route.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
