Over/Short Calculator
Enter the starting bank, cash sales, paid outs, and what you counted. You get the drawer reconciled, whether it is over, short, or on, what to deposit, and how far off it ran against your cash sales.
One shift tells you nothing. The pattern does, the same name short on the same nights. Bar Cop tracks it by shift and by person.
How much over/short is normal.
A drawer never lands perfect every time, and chasing every nickel will drive you and your staff crazy. What matters is the size and the pattern. These are the lines operators watch. They are guides, not laws, and every bar sets its own tolerance.
| Over or short | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Under $2, or under 1% of cash sales | Normal counting noise, let it go |
| Short 1% to 2%, now and then | Miscounts, missed paid outs, sloppy change |
| Short past 2%, or the same person every time | Worth a real look |
| Over on the regular | Under-ringing or wrong change, not free money |
| The thing to watch | The pattern, not the one-off |
A single short is a bad night. The same short, on the same shift, under the same name, is a signal. The only way to tell them apart is to reconcile every drawer and tag it to a person, week after week. Bar Cop does that quietly in the background, so when a real pattern shows up you can find out who instead of guessing.
How over/short is calculated.
What should be there
Start with the bank you opened with, add the cash sales the register rang, and subtract any paid outs, the cash that left the drawer for a tip-out, petty cash, or a refund. That is what should be sitting in the drawer at close.
What is there
Count it. Every bill and every coin in the drawer. Do it the same way every time so the count itself is not the thing throwing your number off. Then set the bank aside, and the rest is what you drop or deposit at the end of the night.
Subtract
Over or short is counted minus expected. More than expected is over, less is short. A dollar or two either way on a busy night is noise. A real number is one that keeps showing up, and over is a problem too, it usually means under-ringing, not free money.