# Closing the drawer every day: shifts, blind counts, honest variances

> Running a shop's cash drawer in shifts: an opening float, cash movements, a blind count at close, a variance booked with a reason, and the end-of-shift report.

By The Dashing team · 2026-09-14

Canonical: https://dashing.krd/en/blog/closing-the-drawer-shifts-iraq

Most small losses in a shop do not come from theft but from a drawer that is never counted: change given over, an expense taken from the drawer without a note, a debt collected and not recorded. The fix is not surveillance; the fix is a daily habit called the **shift**: it opens with a known amount, closes with a count, and the difference is written down rather than hidden. This article explains the cycle as it works in Dashing (داشنك), with the names you will see on screen.

![The shift cycle: from the opening float to the close report](/diagrams/shift-cycle-en.svg)

## 1. Open shift: the opening cash count

At the start of the day the cashier presses "Open shift" and enters the **opening cash count**, the amount actually in the drawer after counting it, not the number that is "supposed" to be there. The shift belongs to the **drawer**, not the device: a staff member can work from any device, and the drawer is one.

## 2. During the day: every movement under a name

Every sale is recorded with its tender (cash, card, credit). And every dinar that enters or leaves the drawer without a sale (a debt collected, a supplier paid from the till, a small expense, a deposit from the owner) is recorded from "Cash in / out during the shift" as cash in or cash out, under the name of who did it and when. Nothing is "mentioned later".

The golden rule: **no dinar leaves the drawer without a movement**. The small expense that "is not worth recording" is exactly the evening's variance.

## 3. Close: the blind count

At close the cashier enters the **counted cash**. There are two options in Settings:

- **Normal count**: the cashier sees the **expected** amount while counting. Faster, but it tempts them to adjust the count to match.
- **Blind count on shift close** (the owner turns it on in the branch settings): the cashier sees neither the expected amount nor the variance until **after** confirming the count. The over or short appears then, and cannot be "smoothed".

Above the threshold you set, the count is not accepted until a **reason** is written; it is kept with the shift in a log nobody can edit.

And one more rule you only see when it matters: **the drawer will not close while sales from an offline device are still waiting to upload**, because the expected amount would be short and a phantom shortage would appear.

## 4. The variance is booked automatically

The over or short does not stay hanging: it is booked in the ledger as a double-entry journal entry the moment the shift closes, so the cash balance on the balance sheet matches what is actually in the drawer. The accountant sees the variances with their dates and reasons without asking anyone.

## 5. The end-of-shift report

After close the report appears in Settlements: sales, returns, tender types and the variance, against the same day last week. This is the report the owner reads on their phone in the evening; they do not need to be in the shop.

From the same report you record a **deposit** when you move cash from the drawer to the safe, the bank or the owner, so the next day starts with a correct opening count.

## Common mistakes, and what to do instead

| Mistake | What happens | Instead |
|---|---|---|
| One shift left open for a week | The variance piles up and its day is unknown | A shift per day, or per staff member |
| An expense from the drawer, unrecorded | An evening shortage "for no reason" | Cash out with a description |
| The cashier sees the expected amount before counting | The variance is always zero, on paper | Turn on the blind count |
| Closing while devices have not uploaded their sales | A phantom shortage | Wait for the upload; the system blocks you anyway |
| The owner takes cash "temporarily" | Nobody knows how much | Cash out under their name, a deposit when returned |

## What Dashing does not do

It does not open a physical cash drawer automatically, does not connect to the bank to know about a deposit, and does not send the shift report automatically in a message; you open it from the app.

## Sources

- Staff and shifts in Dashing, https://dashing.krd/en/features/staff (accessed 2026-09-14)

## Other languages

- العربية: https://dashing.krd/blog/closing-the-drawer-shifts-iraq

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Dashing · https://dashing.krd/en