Two registers, one cash drawer. It sounds like it should be a settings change, but the answer has less to do with Altru than with how the drawer itself gets told to open. Once you understand that piece, the options get much clearer, and so do the tradeoffs for cash accountability.
The short answer
Altru doesn’t open a cash drawer directly. In a typical setup, the drawer is cabled to a receipt printer, and the printer sends a small “kick” signal to the drawer when a cash transaction prints. So “can two workstations share a drawer?” really means “can two workstations reliably trigger the same printer, or the same drawer interface?” Sometimes yes. But it takes deliberate hardware choices, and you should prove it works in testing before you rely on it at the admissions desk.
Altru’s hardware support has changed over the years, and so have its supported browsers and printer handling. We can’t confirm for your environment whether Altru officially supports one drawer shared across workstations. Ask Blackbaud support for the current supported hardware guidance before you buy anything.
How the drawer actually opens
Most front-desk cash drawers use one of three connection styles:
- Printer-driven: an RJ11/RJ12 cable from the drawer to the receipt printer’s drawer port. This is the most common setup. The drawer opens when the printer receives the open command, usually set in the printer driver or as part of the print job.
- USB or serial interface: the drawer connects straight to one computer and is opened by software or a utility on that machine.
- Network or multi-port interface: a drawer, or an add-on interface box, that can take a signal from more than one source. Some drawers are sold with two printer ports for exactly this situation.
Before you plan anything, find out which kind you already own. It’s usually printed on the label underneath the drawer, or you can tell from the cable.
Three ways to set it up
1. Share a networked receipt printer
Put a receipt printer that supports Ethernet or Wi-Fi on your network, connect the drawer to it, and add that printer to both workstations. Whichever station prints a cash receipt sends the kick.
What to watch for:
- Every workstation needs the same driver and the same drawer-open setting. If one station is set differently, the drawer won’t open for that station.
- Receipts from both stations come out of one printer. At a busy window, staff will grab each other’s receipts unless the printer sits within reach of both cashiers.
- Test card sales too. Depending on driver settings, the drawer may open on every receipt, not just cash.
2. Use a drawer with two printer ports
If each workstation keeps its own receipt printer, a dual-port drawer (or a splitter interface made for this purpose) can take the kick from either printer. This is often the cleaner option: receipts stay separate and each station prints locally. Check that the drawer maker’s interface is compatible with your printer models.
3. Don’t share the drawer
It’s worth saying plainly: a second inexpensive drawer is often cheaper than the time spent troubleshooting a shared one, and it solves the accountability problem below. If counter space is the real constraint, under-counter drawers take up very little room.
The part that matters more: accountability
The hardware is the easy half. The harder question is how you’ll reconcile a drawer that two people put cash into.
Altru records each sale against the user who processed it, so your daily sales and deposit reports can break down activity by cashier. A shared drawer, though, holds one combined pile of cash. If the count is off at close, you can’t tell which station or cashier caused it. Some options:
- Treat the shared drawer as one till. Reconcile the combined cash against the combined total for both users. This is simple, but you lose individual accountability.
- Use a split insert. Some drawers accept dividers or removable tills, so each cashier keeps a separate float in the same drawer. This works if staff are disciplined about it.
- Use shift handoffs instead of simultaneous sharing. One cashier at a time, with a count-down at each change. This fits sites where the second station only opens during school groups or events.
Whatever you choose, write it down. Your finance office will want to know how the drawer maps to the reports before the first variance turns up, not after.
Testing before go-live
- Run a cash sale from each workstation and confirm the drawer opens every time, including right after the browser or computer restarts.
- Run a card sale from each station and see whether the drawer opens when it shouldn’t.
- Have both stations print within a few seconds of each other to see how the printer handles overlapping jobs.
- Close out a test day and reconcile it with your actual procedure, using your daily sales reports.
- Unplug the network cable from the printer and see what staff experience, so they know what an outage looks like.
Do this testing in a sandbox or before opening, never during live sales.
Quick answers
Is there an Altru setting that assigns one drawer to several workstations?
We’re not aware of one that does this by itself, since the drawer is usually opened by the printer and not by Altru. Blackbaud support can confirm what your version supports.
Can a USB-connected drawer be shared?
Not practically. A USB drawer is tied to the computer it’s plugged into. To share a drawer, you’ll need a printer-driven or network setup.
Does sharing a drawer affect Altru’s revenue records?
No. Each transaction is still recorded under the user who processed it. The sharing only affects how you count and reconcile the physical cash.
