By early afternoon on a strong admissions day, a front-desk drawer can hold far more cash than anyone is comfortable leaving at an open counter. The usual answer in retail is a safe drop or cash pickup: a supervisor pulls the excess, counts it with the cashier, and moves it to the safe. Altru users run into a snag when they try to make that pickup show up cleanly in the end-of-day numbers.
The short version: as far as I know, Altru does not have a dedicated “pickup” or “skim” transaction that removes cash from an open drawer and reports it separately. Whether your version or configuration offers something close is worth checking directly. Test it in a sandbox, or ask Blackbaud support, before you build a process around an assumption. What follows is how to run mid-day drops reliably either way, using a paper trail that ties back to Altru at close.
Why the drop and the drawer get out of sync
Altru records what was sold and how it was paid for. It knows how much cash the cashier took in. It does not know that a supervisor physically removed $600 from the drawer at 1:30. So when the cashier counts down at closing, the drawer is $600 short of what Altru expects, unless someone adds the drop back.
That is the whole problem. Nothing in the sales data is wrong. The money simply lives in two places, and your reconciliation has to account for both.
Two ways to handle it
Option 1: Log the drop outside Altru and add it back at close
This is the approach most venues settle on because it doesn’t change anything about how sales are processed.
- Set a trigger. Pick a cash threshold above the starting bank (for example, “anything over $500 in large bills”) or a fixed time, such as after the midday rush. Thresholds work better than clock times because they follow actual volume.
- Count with two people. The cashier and a supervisor count the pull together at the register. Never let one person count alone and walk away.
- Fill out a drop slip. Date, time, register or drawer, cashier name, supervisor name, amount by denomination, and both signatures or initials. Keep a carbon or photo for the cashier.
- Seal it. Use a numbered tamper-evident bag and write the bag number on the slip.
- Record it on a shared log. A simple sheet per day (paper or spreadsheet) listing every drop: time, drawer, amount, bag number, who pulled it.
- Add it back at close. When the cashier closes out, their counted cash plus all drops from that drawer should equal what Altru expects. The supervisor doing the close checks the log before signing off on any variance.
The weak point is step 6. If the person closing doesn’t know a drop happened, the drawer looks short and someone spends twenty minutes recounting. Make the log the first thing reviewed at closing, not something people remember to look for.
Option 2: Treat each drop as a shift change
Some organizations avoid add-backs entirely by closing out the cashier’s session at the pickup, reconciling it, and starting a fresh session with a new starting bank. Every count then matches Altru on its own.
This is cleaner on paper, but it costs more time at the counter and only works if your Altru setup lets a cashier close and reopen during the day without disrupting the next transaction. Try it in a sandbox or on a slow afternoon before rolling it out. It tends to suit organizations that already reconcile at shift changes, and it is a poor fit for a single long shift with one cashier.
Making the deposit line up
Mid-day drops feed into the same bank deposit as end-of-day cash, so the deposit total should equal the cash payments Altru recorded for the day, regardless of when the cash left the drawer. A few habits keep that true:
- Don’t open drop bags early. Keep them sealed until whoever prepares the deposit counts everything together.
- Reconcile the log to the bags. Every bag number on the log should be in the safe, and every bag in the safe should be on the log.
- Compare to Altru’s cash totals. Use your daily sales reconciliation or a payment report filtered to cash for that date. If the deposit plus any variance doesn’t match, the drop log is the first place to look.
- Note variances where finance will see them. If a drawer was over or short, record the amount and the explanation the same day. Reconstructing it a week later rarely works.
Controls worth keeping
- Two-person counts for every drop, no exceptions for “just this once.”
- Pickups done at the register or a back office, not carried loose through public areas.
- Vary the time if you do clock-based drops, so the routine isn’t predictable from outside.
- Limit who can access the safe, and keep the drop log next to it.
- Train seasonal staff on the add-back rule during onboarding. A new closer who doesn’t know about drops will report a large shortage on day one.
Quick answers
Can I record the drop as a transaction in Altru?
I’m not aware of a native pickup transaction, and inventing a workaround with a fake payment or refund will distort your revenue reporting. Confirm with Blackbaud support whether anything in your configuration fits before trying.
How much should stay in the drawer?
Keep the starting bank plus enough small bills to make change. Pull large bills first; they are what makes a drawer attractive to a thief.
Who should do the pickup?
Someone who isn’t working that drawer, usually a supervisor or manager, with the cashier present for the count.
