Cash variance rate
Cash variance rate is the absolute gap between takings counted at the end of the day and the takings expected from POS records, as a share of expected takings.
Also calledtill variance, cash over and short, kasa farkı oranı
Formula
|Expected takings − Counted takings| ÷ Expected takings × 100- Expected takings
- What the POS says should have been collected, by tender type: cash, card, meal card, gift voucher; net of refunds and voids.
- Counted takings
- Cash counted at close plus card and meal card slip totals.
- Period rate
- Sum of daily absolute variances ÷ Expected takings for the period × 100.
Calculator
Enter your own figures and the result updates instantly. The defaults are the figures from the worked example below.
Result%0,24
Worked example
How to read it, and what good looks like
Calculate the variance by tender type; a cash shortage and a card overage on the same till cancel each other and both disappear. Typical causes are change-giving errors, a receipt closed on the wrong tender, a refund or void never posted to the till, and unmatched card slips. The period rate is built from the sum of daily absolute variances, with shortages and overages reported in separate columns.
There is no public benchmark for cash variance; set the threshold from the store's own history. Pattern matters more than size: small variances that recur on the same cashier, the same shift or right after a cluster of voids and refunds say more than one large one-off. Read the rate by cashier, shift and hour for that reason.
Calculate the rate daily; any variance over threshold goes to its owner the same day. In Mindpera, Mind Ops matches POS lines against ERP lines and lists unmatched lines with a reason code and the amount; camera event tracking time-stamps events at the till and raises an alert for any till event with no matching transaction. An unresolved shortage escalates step by step up to the regional manager. Where the POS and the ERP close the day on different rules, installation ties them to one rule.
Where it misleads
- Shortages and overages are netted; a till that is short one day and over the next looks as if nothing is wrong.
- Refund and void receipts are not posted to the cashier or day that processed them; the variance surfaces on another till on another day.
- Variance is only watched as a month-end total; small, recurring gaps on the same cashier vanish in the sum.
Data you need
- POS receipt lines with tender type
- End-of-day cash count and the fiscal register's Z report (ÖKC, the fiscal cash register required in Turkey)
- Card and meal card slip totals
- Refund, void and discount transactions with cashier and time
Mindpera products that calculate this KPI
Frequently asked questions
- How do you calculate cash variance?
- Subtract the cash and slip total counted at close from the takings the POS expected. Calculate it separately by tender type: cash, credit card, meal card and gift voucher. For the rate, divide the absolute variance by expected takings. On a day with TRY 250,000 expected and TRY 249,400 counted, the variance is TRY 600 and the rate 0.24%.
- What causes cash shortages at the till?
- The most common causes are change-giving errors, receipts closed on the wrong tender, refunds or voids not posted to the till, unmatched card slips and theft. To separate them, break the variance down by tender type, cashier and hour. A cluster of voids and refunds just before a shortage is the first pattern to review alongside camera footage.
- What is an acceptable cash variance rate?
- There is no public benchmark; set the threshold from the store's own history and track shortages and overages separately. Pattern matters more than size: small variances recurring on the same cashier or the same shift say more than a single large one, and they are reviewed even when the threshold is not breached.