A family of four pays $58 in admission with three twenties. Your cashier needs to hand back $2, and Altru needs to show $58 in cash, not $60. That gap between what the guest hands over and what the sale actually costs is where a lot of cash mistakes start, and it is a common reason a drawer doesn’t match at close.
This guide covers how to work out change due when you take cash in Altru daily sales, what to confirm about your own setup, and how to keep the drawer matching Altru at close.
First, find out what your Altru screen actually does
Before you train anyone, run a test cash sale in a sandbox or training environment and watch the payment step closely. You want to answer three questions:
- Does the payment screen show a change-due amount when the amount tendered is more than the total? Some setups and versions behave differently, and we would rather you see it yourself than take anyone’s word for it.
- What happens if a cashier types the amount handed over (say $60) instead of the sale total? Check whether Altru blocks it, records it as the payment, or calculates change. If it records $60 as revenue on a $58 sale, you have found the source of your overages.
- How does the cash total appear in your end-of-day reports? You need to know which number your drawer count is reconciled against.
If the screen doesn’t display change due, or your results are unclear, ask Blackbaud support how cash tender is meant to work in your version. Either way, your staff need a process that doesn’t depend on the screen doing the math for them.
The rule that prevents most errors
Whatever the screen shows, the cash recorded in Altru should equal the sale total. Change is handled at the drawer.
Put that sentence on a card next to every register. If your test showed that a tendered amount can be saved as the payment, that is the habit to train out: Altru’s cash total runs high, the drawer runs “short” against it, and someone spends the evening hunting for money that was never missing.
How to calculate change at the desk
The math is simple: amount tendered minus sale total equals change due. The trouble is doing it accurately with a line behind the guest. Three habits help:
- Read the total out loud before taking the cash. “That’s $58.” It gives the guest a chance to catch a wrong ticket count before money changes hands.
- Leave the guest’s bills on top of the drawer until change is counted out. If there is a dispute (“I gave you a fifty”), the evidence is right there.
- Count change back up to the amount tendered. On a $58 sale paid with $60, hand back two singles while saying “59, 60.” Counting up catches errors that subtraction in your head doesn’t.
For seasonal staff or volunteers, a plain calculator at each station is perfectly reasonable. Speed matters less than getting the drawer right.
Make the totals easier to work with
Some of the change problem is really a pricing problem. If admission prices include tax and land on odd amounts, every cash sale needs coins and mental math. Organizations that take a lot of cash often price general admission in whole dollars, ideally in multiples of five, so most change is in bills. That is a pricing decision for leadership, not an Altru setting, but it is worth raising if cash errors keep coming up.
It also helps to start each drawer with a set, documented float (for example, a fixed amount in ones and fives) so cashiers aren’t short of small bills by midday and tempted to “round” change.
Reconciling the drawer against Altru
At close, the check is:
Counted cash minus starting float should equal Altru’s cash total for that drawer or user.
If it doesn’t match, work through these in order:
- Over by small, odd amounts usually means change was short-counted to a guest, or a sale was rung for less than the guest paid.
- Short by the same amount as a change transaction often means the tendered amount was keyed as the payment. Look at cash payments for that session that don’t match a normal ticket price combination.
- Cash in the drawer with no matching sale can come from donations dropped at the desk or parking fees taken outside Altru. Decide where those get recorded and write it down.
- Payments rung as cash that were really card, or the reverse, show up as one total too high and the other too low by the same amount.
If more than one person works a drawer, check whether your daily sales reports can be broken out by user or session, so a variance can be traced to a shift rather than the whole day.
A short checklist for training
- Altru payment = sale total. Always.
- Say the total, take the cash, leave it on the drawer.
- Count change back up to what the guest handed you.
- Never round change to fix a short float; ask for more small bills.
- Note anything unusual (voids, refunds, cash donations) on the drawer sheet as it happens.
Quick answers
Should we record the amount the guest handed over anywhere?
Not in the payment amount. If you want a record for disputes, a note on the drawer sheet for large bills is enough.
What about cash refunds?
Record the refund in Altru, tied to the original sale where your setup allows it, so the cash total drops by the same amount that leaves the drawer. A refund handed out without a matching Altru transaction will show up as a shortage at close.
