Front desk cash handling: float, drops, foreign currency and shortages

Hotel front desk cash handling is the routine that keeps one drawer honest: a fixed float counted at the start and end of each shift, every payment and payout recorded in the system with its currency, cash dropped to the safe at a set limit, and any difference recorded as over or short instead of quietly corrected.

A guest leaves a deposit in euros, the agent writes the lira equivalent on the folio, and three weeks later the refund does not match. Nothing was stolen. The gap was built at the desk, one small unrecorded step at a time. A shortage is usually built at the desk, one small unrecorded step at a time. After reading this you will be able to set a float, record payments and payouts so they can be checked, drop cash to the safe correctly, and handle a count that does not match without hiding anything.

What is a front desk cash float, and who owns the drawer?#

A float is a fixed amount of cash a cashier starts the shift with, and it must be exactly the same amount at the end. One drawer has one named owner for one shift.

The float is a working tool, not money. It exists so the cashier can give change, and it is never spent on refunds or payouts beyond what the written policy allows. The hotel sets the float amount once, in writing, per cash point and per shift; a drawer that starts at a different figure every day cannot be reconciled against anything.

Count at the start in front of the outgoing cashier and at the end in front of the incoming one, and have both people sign the same line with the date and time. Use a blind count: the cashier writes the counted total before seeing the system figure, so the count shows whether the drawer is right rather than whether the cashier can make it match.

Never top up a drawer from another drawer or from a pocket. That hides a difference instead of recording it, and it destroys the link between one cashier and one result. The system should hold the float as a fixed balance per cashier, so the cashier's report can show opening float, sales, payouts, drops and the expected closing figure in one place. The rest of the shift handover around this count belongs in the same written procedure, so the next cashier signs for the float and the difference, not just the cash.

How do you take cash at check-in: receipts, deposits and foreign currency?#

Every note that enters the drawer is recorded in the system at the moment it is taken, with its currency, and the guest receives a document for it. Cash for a room is a payment; cash held as security is a deposit and stays a liability.

Separate the two kinds of cash at the moment of taking it. A payment reduces the folio balance, a deposit does not, and the two must never sit in the same field, or the refund later has no basis. The receipt comes from the system, not from a notepad: a handwritten line is invisible to night audit and to the accountant, and it is the first place a shortage hides. How deposits interact with card pre-authorizations is a separate question, and it needs its own written rule at the front desk.

For foreign currency, record three things: the currency and amount, the rate applied, and who set the rate. A rate without a name cannot be checked a month later. The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye sets indicative foreign-exchange and banknote buying and selling rates each business day at 15:30 and announces them on its website the same day; they appear in the Resmî Gazete the next day, and no indicative rate is set on weekends, public holidays or half working days (TCMB, "Gösterge Niteliğindeki Kurlar" (opens in a new tab), 2 November 2026).

Those published rates bind no person or institution. In transactions between private parties, the parties themselves decide which rate to apply, as the same source states. The hotel therefore needs one written rule, applied on every shift, for example the day's indicative buying rate at the moment of the transaction. Which rate applies for tax or invoice purposes is a question for the accountant, not for the desk; settle it before the first foreign guest, not after the first dispute.

Write the currency on the folio, because a deposit taken in euros must be returned in euros or converted by the same written rule, never by memory.

How do refunds and petty cash payouts leave the drawer?#

No cash leaves the drawer without a paid-out slip that names the amount, the currency, the reason, the folio or supplier, and the person who authorised it.

A refund follows the original payment method. A card payment is returned to the card through the terminal, not paid out in cash from the drawer, because the two records will never meet. The slip carries the date and time, amount and currency, the folio or supplier, the reason, the signature of the person who authorised it and the signature of the cashier who paid it.

Set a limit per person and per shift in writing; anything above it needs a second signature, usually the duty manager on shift. Petty cash for a delivery, a taxi or a florist is still a paid-out: attach the supplier's receipt to the slip, or the money is unexplained at the count. Record the payout in the system as it happens, so the expected closing figure moves with it; a payout kept on paper only reappears at the count as a shortage.

Voiding a charge and refunding cash are two different acts. The void corrects the bill, the refund moves money. Do one, then the other, and keep both references on the folio, so the correction and the payment point at each other and the audit trail stays readable.

When and how should cash be dropped to the safe?#

Cash leaves the drawer when it passes a set limit, in a sealed envelope with a drop number, logged by two people, and counted later by someone who did not take it.

Set the maximum the drawer may hold in writing, and drop when that figure is reached, not at the end of the shift. A full drawer is both a risk and a temptation. The envelope carries the drop number, date and time, cashier name, currency and amount, and the count inside; the outside must match the log line exactly, or the drop cannot be proven.

Two signatures: the cashier who drops and the person who receives it or witnesses it going into the safe. The drop log is a numbered sequence; a missing number is a finding on its own, whatever the money turns out to be. The general cashier or the accountant counts the drops the next morning, blind, and reconciles them to the log and to the system totals rather than to the cashier's own note.

Cash is never held in a pocket, a bag or a locked desk drawer that is not the safe, and never taken off the property, even briefly and even by a manager.

The third line above is an example of the rule, not a real entry: when the sealed amount and the counted amount differ, the difference is written next to the original figure, never corrected on top of it.

What should you do when the count does not match?#

Recount, then walk the paper, then record the difference as over or short. The drawer is never adjusted to make the number look right.

Recount alone and in silence first, then with a witness; most differences are a miscount, a note stuck under the tray, or foreign currency mixed into the lira pile. Then walk the paper in order: paid-out slips, refunds, drops, currency conversions, then the last transactions of the shift against the system, one by one. Check the drop log against the safe, because a drop that was made but not logged, or logged but not made, looks exactly like a shortage at the drawer.

Record the result as over or short on the cashier's report, with the currency, the amount and a short written note; the difference stays visible to the next person. Never move money between drawers, never take the difference from a colleague's float, and never carry it to tomorrow. Each of these turns a small, explainable gap into an untraceable one.

Set escalation in writing: a small difference is recorded and reviewed, a larger one goes to the duty manager in the same shift, and a pattern across shifts goes to the accountant and the owner. Ask which step could produce this exact amount: a rate applied twice, a refund paid in cash, a deposit returned in the wrong currency, a payout slip that never reached the system.

What do night audit and the accountant check the next morning?#

Night audit closes the business day and proves each cashier's drawer; the accountant then settles the currency and tax questions the desk is not qualified to decide.

Night audit compares each cashier's expected closing figure with the counted figure and lists over and short per cashier, not per hotel, so the result stays attached to a person and a shift. Drops are reconciled to the safe and to the log: the safe total should equal the drops received plus the floats still sitting in the drawers. The same sequence should end with the business day closed, so the next shift starts from a figure everyone has signed.

Foreign currency positions are stated: how much foreign cash the hotel now holds, at which rates it was taken, and what it will be valued at in the accounts. The accountant decides the rate used for tax and invoice purposes and how exchange differences are treated; the desk hands over the rate record, not an opinion.

Card settlements are a separate reconciliation and belong to the terminal and the bank, not to the cash count. Mixing the two creates differences that never existed. A weekly look at the over and short lines by cashier and by shift shows whether the routine or a person is the source, and that is the only reliable way to tell the two apart.

Write the policy, then walk one shift with it#

Write the one-page cash policy this week: the float amount per cash point, the drop limit, the payout and refund limits with who signs, the single foreign-currency rate rule, and the escalation thresholds for a difference. Then walk one full shift with it, from opening count to the accountant's desk, and fix the first step that produces a gap. The float, the receipt, the paid-out slip, the drop and the count are one chain, and treat a shortage as a broken link to be found before treating it as a dishonest person.