The ₹400 Shortage, the Fake ₹500 Note and the Unrecorded Credit
At 9:40 pm, the cashier at a 4,000 sq ft store closes her drawer. The POS reports cash sales of ₹68,250. The counted cash is ₹69,450. During a 25-minute internet outage, she wrote two bills in a notebook: ₹620 and ₹980, both collected in cash and not entered into the POS. She also allowed a friend to take goods worth ₹1,200 on credit without a slip. A ₹500 note in the bundle looks faded and is later rejected by the bank. CCTV shows a queue of eight customers during the outage and the cashier using her own phone at the counter. The cashier has three years' service and no earlier discrepancy. The store's cash-handling rule says all credit sales need owner approval and manual bills must be entered the same day.
1. Reconcile the drawer. What is the actual shortage or excess, and what does each item tell you?
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Expected cash = POS ₹68,250 + manual bills ₹620 + ₹980 = ₹69,850. Counted cash is ₹69,450, so the physical drawer is short ₹400. That ₹400 could be a change error during the queue, but it is not yet proof of dishonesty. The ₹500 note is a separate issue: if the bank rejects it, realisable cash is ₹68,950, and the shortage against expected rises to ₹900. The ₹1,200 credit sale is not a cash sale; it is a receivable. It does not explain the ₹400 cash gap, but it is an unapproved credit risk and must be recovered. So the true position is: ₹400 cash short, ₹500 counterfeit exposure, and ₹1,200 credit at risk. Do not net them into one figure and announce a ₹2,100 theft; separate cash, counterfeit and credit.
2. Which control failures are visible, and what immediate steps should the manager take before deciding on discipline?
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Visible failures: manual bills were not entered the same day; a credit sale was allowed without owner approval or a slip; the ₹500 note was accepted without a check; the cashier used her own phone at the counter; and one cashier handled a long queue alone. Immediate steps: count again in the presence of the cashier and a witness, preserve the notebook, duplicate bill and CCTV, check the POS audit trail, ask for a written explanation, and contact the friend for payment. Send the note to the bank for verification. Do not suspend or accuse before these steps; three years of clean service and a 25-minute outage are mitigating facts, but the missing credit slip is a serious process breach. If the friend pays and the ₹400 is a change error, the outcome may be counselling and retraining rather than dismissal.
3. Propose three controls for the next 30 days and one metric to monitor.
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First, replace the open notebook with serially numbered manual bill pads; every manual bill must be entered into the POS before the next day's opening and signed off by the supervisor. Second, require written owner approval for any credit sale, with customer name, phone, amount and due date; no approval, no goods. Third, put a note detector or UV lamp at the counter and require large notes to be checked in front of the customer; also rotate cashiers and do a surprise mid-day count. The metric is daily cash variance as a percentage of sales, plus manual-bill reconciliation rate. A 30-day target might be variance below 0.1% and 100% manual bills entered by 10 am. If variance falls but credit slips remain missing, the control is not working.