Bakery cashier - the cash-up checklist: gift cards, cake deposits, deal vouchers, and the bulk scale each reconciled before the till hands over

You are a bakery cashier. Produce a one-page Till Cash-Up
Checklist, A4 portrait, in two blocks - five minutes before
opening, ten minutes at close - taped beside the register and
ticked line by line. Every line must read "action + what
'matches' looks like + what to do when it doesn't." No "check
carefully" entries with nothing to check against.

Block one: five minutes before opening (what this block catches
here doesn't go wrong all day)

1. Float count: count by denomination; matches yesterday's
   sealed record → sign on. Doesn't match → check for a logged
   use first; unexplained → seal the float as-is and hand it to
   the manager. Never open the day carrying a variance
2. The bulk scale, two checks: the scale first - zero it, weigh
   a known reference, inside the scale's tolerance → pass.
   Then the prices - walk today's weight-based price codes
   against the price-change notice; the live question is
   "was anything repriced today." Haven't seen the notice →
   act as if a change happened and check every item before
   opening. Old price still on the scale → re-code it on the
   spot and note "sales may have rung wrong from [time]," for
   tonight's close
3. Deal-voucher terminal: log in to the voucher platform's
   redemption page, page loads → pass. Login fails or errors
   → run vouchers on a manual log today (voucher code + value
   + count), reconciled separately against the platform at
   close
4. Gift card reader: swipe a test card; load, spend, and
   balance all respond → pass. Reader dead → tell the manager,
   stop gift-card payment and log by hand (card number +
   amount + count); entries from before the fix get their own
   reconciliation

Block two: ten minutes at close (tick each line as it
reconciles; the till isn't handed over unticked)

5. Cash count: by denomination, twice; both passes agree →
   record the total. Disagree → a third count settles it, and
   the variance goes to line 10
6. Gift cards, two columns: today's loads (count + amount) in
   one column, spends (count + amount) in the other, each
   reconciled to the system separately. The columns must stay
   apart - netted together, "cash taken for a load, keyed as a
   spend" hides perfectly. Mismatch → re-check the manual log
   from line 4
7. Cake deposits: today's deposits vs the order book, line by
   line, in both directions - "money taken, no order written"
   and "order written, no money taken." Mismatch → confirm
   with the shift on the spot; anything still unclear is
   recorded as a variance with the book as the source of truth
8. Deal vouchers: redemption count on the till vs the
   platform's back end for today. Off by one → check the
   manual log from line 3 first; still off → list the voucher
   codes, hand them to the manager for the platform, and never
   absorb the difference into the till
9. Bulk spot check: pull three random weight-based sales from
   today's journal and verify weight × unit price = receipt
   line. All three pass → done. Any one fails → pull that
   item's price-code change history (the trail from line 2)
   and go through every sale of that item today
10. Variance log: every overage or short found above gets
    written now - amount + direction + one-sentence cause.
    Have a direction, write it; don't, write "unlocated."
    Never blank, never tomorrow

Closing discipline, printed at the bottom of the sheet:
problems found at close do not survive the night. An overnight
variance has no same-day memory left to ask - what can't be
traced tonight is even less traceable tomorrow.

Constraints:
- Every line carries a test and a landing action; no summary
  entries like "carefully reconcile gift cards and vouchers"
- Everything fits inside ten minutes after close; if it
  doesn't, the list gets cut, not extended
- Mismatch actions are fixed inside each line (seal / manual
  log / re-code / record) - never "report to leadership" in
  the abstract; who to tell, and with what numbers, travels
  with the line
- The float's composition and where the price-change notice
  lives are filled in by the store; the checklist invents
  neither

Why it is written this way

"Was anything repriced today" sits before opening rather than at close, because an old price on the bulk scale is the root of a full day of mischarges. The notice went up, nobody read it, the scale still carries yesterday's code, and every weight-based sale rings wrong until someone notices at night - which then means a day of refunds and arguments. Line 2 therefore locks in "no notice seen = treat as repriced and check everything": better a wasted walk of the codes than a bet that today nothing changed. A lost bet costs a full day; the walk costs two minutes.

Gift cards are forced into two columns because the classic error hides in the net: cash taken for a load, keyed into the system as a spend, cancels out when loads and spends reconcile as one figure. Two columns, reconciled separately, and it has nowhere to sit. Cake deposits get the same two-directional treatment - "money without an order" loses the balance-payment trail, "order without money" loses the handover - and neither error surfaces on its own; only a line-by-line check in both directions catches them.

Every line demands a matching test, because a "check carefully" entry gets ticked for "I did something," not for "it matched." With a test, the tick carries meaning; with a mismatch action, the person at the till isn't left improvising when the tick won't come. This is also why every action lives inside its own line: "report to leadership" is four words, not an action - who to tell, and with what numbers, is what an action is made of.

The closing discipline is the sheet's foundation. Tracing a variance runs on same-day memory: which sale got repriced, who keyed it, when the reader died - by tomorrow all of it has decayed into "roughly." One sentence written on the spot, or the word "unlocated." The most expensive entry in a variance record is never "unlocated"; it is the invented cause that reads plausibly and gets cited as fact the next morning.

Variables