Recording daily takings without the till add-on
How a small shop without Achekam's till records each day's takings by payment method in one journal, then matches the banking and card settlements.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Retail businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Plenty of small shops do not need a till system. A spaza, a fabric shop, a market stall that became a storefront, a pharmacy counter attached to a clinic: many of them run on a cash drawer, a card terminal from the bank, a mobile money number, and a notebook. The owner knows roughly what came in each day. The books know very little until the accountant reconstructs the month from bank statements.
That reconstruction is where money and VAT go missing. This article shows how a shop that does not use Achekam's till can still get each day's takings into its own books, accurately and quickly, with nothing more than a daily sheet and one journal.
What a shop does without the Point of Sale add-on
Achekam's till sits under Commerce & POS, and only a business with the Point of Sale add-on can use it; for anyone else, the server refuses till requests. So without the add-on, there is no till screen, no Z report and no automatic sales journal.
What you do have is a full set of books. Each business has its own double-entry ledger with a standard chart of accounts, and accounts can be added, renamed or switched off. You can post manual journals, import bank statements and reconcile them. That is enough to record takings properly, provided someone does it every day rather than once a month.
A daily takings sheet by payment method
Start at the counter. At close each day, whoever cashes up fills in one sheet, on paper or in a spreadsheet:
| Line | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|
| Cash counted in the drawer, less the opening float | The drawer count |
| Card sales | The terminal's end-of-day total |
| Mobile money received | The day's statement on the phone or merchant portal |
| EFT payments received for collected goods | Payment notifications checked against the bank |
| Total takings | The sum of the above |
| Cash paid out of the drawer, with slips | Petty purchases, refunds |
| Cash to bank | Cash counted less what stays as float |
Two people should sign it: the person who counted, and the owner or a manager who checked. Keep the sheet with the terminal slip and any receipts for cash paid out.
Keep the receipts you give customers too. South African businesses can read SARS's page on record keeping, which sets out who must keep records under the Tax Administration Act, which books and documents to keep, and the retention periods. Nigerian and Kenyan shops have their own record-keeping duties under their tax laws.
One journal for the day's sales
From the sheet, post one manual journal for the day. A business can post manual journals in Achekam; an unbalanced journal is refused, and so is one dated in a closed month.
Ask your accountant to set up the accounts you need first. Typically:
- a cash-on-hand account for takings not yet banked;
- a clearing account for card sales not yet settled by the bank;
- a clearing account for mobile money, if your provider settles to the bank rather than keeping a separate wallet;
- your sales account, and output VAT if you are registered.
The day's journal, in words: debit cash on hand with the cash takings, debit card clearing with the card total, debit mobile money with the mobile total, and credit sales with the takings before VAT and output VAT with the VAT, if you charge it. Cash paid out of the drawer goes to the right expense account in the same journal, reducing cash on hand.
If you sell items at different VAT rates, the daily sheet needs to split takings by rate, or the VAT will be wrong. A shop with many mixed baskets is one of the strongest cases for the till, which works this out per sale.
Banking the cash and matching the deposit
When you bank the cash, the deposit appears on your bank statement. Achekam imports statements as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053, and checks that the opening balance plus the movements equals the closing balance.
Matching works by suggestion, and a person accepts each match. Match each cash deposit against cash on hand. If you bank two days' takings together, match the one deposit against both days. A bank line not yet in the books becomes a suggested journal a person approves, and a reconciliation completes only when no difference is left or every leftover line is explained.
Cash on hand should then show only what is genuinely still in the safe. If it creeps up month after month, takings are being recorded but not banked, and that needs a question asked quickly. The routine for safe drops and banking is set out in safe drops, paid-outs and banking the takings.
Card and mobile payments as they settle
Card and mobile money arrive later, usually net of fees. Match each settlement against its clearing account, and record the fee as a journal to bank charges. When the clearing account returns to nothing for each settled day, you know every card and mobile sale reached the bank. Importing and matching statements is covered in bank feeds and statement imports.
At month end, close the month. Months can be soft-closed, hard-closed and locked, and a closed month refuses postings from every source. Before closing, Achekam checks the ledger balances and that no posting suggestions, unposted bills or unmatched bank lines are waiting, which catches the day nobody posted.
Signs that the till would now pay its way
The manual routine works well for a shop with few sales a day. These are the signs you have outgrown it:
- The daily sheet takes longer than the cash-up.
- You sell at more than one VAT rate and splitting takings by hand is error-prone.
- You need to know stock levels, not just sales.
- Several people work the counter and you cannot tell who sold what.
- Customers ask for proper receipts with your tax number.
If two or more of those apply, compare what the add-ons offer in which commerce add-ons a shop actually needs.
Until then, print the daily takings sheet tonight, have it signed at close, and post the first daily journal tomorrow morning.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
