Till balance out - asked to pay in money

paddedjohn

Can you not ask for seperate tills? One each for different staff on the shift

timbo58

surely most modern tills could easily be set to log in & out as a user which will give a record when staff changeover, the takings can then be checked at each point.

hippygran

Businesses can do this.
The company I worked for did often try to!
But they cant take more than a certain percentage of your wages, even if a large loss.
Many years ago I worked at a petrol station, and their contracts had us paying for drive-offs! Cheek! But even they could only take it back in pennies a week, coz the wages were so low, and they can only do up to a certain %.
AND more importantly, they can only do so if you are the ONLY person using that till during the time the till difference occurred.
Furthermore, I believe that even if you were the only person using the till, they still cant claim the money back, if they did not allow you to check your starting float (and gained a signature off you to the effect that you had checked it). Although many people I had working for me were silly enough to just sign without checking, and legally if you are given the opportunity to check and dont do so, the loss does then become your responsibility.
If there was more than one user, my advice would be not to pay.
Where I worked, we did put differences in, but mailnly because we had worked together for years and that element of trust was there, and some of us couldnt bear the till not to balance. Think all 5 of us girls had OCD!
Usually this wasnt a problem though as we had money available in our staff tips, and we used that.
A note of caution though, we had a new girl, the till differences went through the roof, and we discovered that she was taking it to pay her bus fare!
They can not legally take the money off you in cash at the end of the shift (they can ask, but cant enforce!).
What you signed was probably a document which allows them to re-claim monies through their PAYE, but they can only do this in small amounts, and it cant go above a certain % of your wages.
Our company would have only done this for repeated large differences.
Smaller, repeated differences would be dealt with my disciplinary/staff performance management procedures. Full records need to be kept to go down either of these routes.
(Which was how I found out about the bus fares - she admitted it during a minuted meeting!)
ACAS will give you advice, and I would advise you to read your staff handbook (if you have one), and your contract carefully.
As much as companies will try to bluff things, these are legal documents, which they cant change without written notification and a period of notice.

Bamber19

timbo58 wrote: »

surely most modern tills could easily be set to log in & out as a user which will give a record when staff changeover, the takings can then be checked at each point.

Staff swap over in an instant, in some places another staff member from the floor will cover breaks for 15 minutes if it's busy, there's not enough time to do a till check at every staff change and knowing how much should have been in the till at different points means nothing unless they are checked at these points.

timbo58

in which case, the missing money cannot be blamed on anyone, since it is impossible to find who is making the error.

ManicMum

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Whilst I agree that you shouldn't have to pay because mistakes do happen in business you are not that principled because if you were you would pay for your mistakes that have caused the company a loss.

??????????????????? Oh really? Well, that's me told then. Thank you for correcting my long held and obviously incorrect assumptions about myself. I defer to your higher knowledge.

ManicMum

thanks everyone for these helpful posts. I think I will give ACAS a call tomorrow and get the official line.

Only thing is they can decide to not offer me shifts anymore and i am on 0 hours contract. I feel the vibes from the other staff when I express my thoughts on this issue - don't think I am making myself popular. The other staff don't seem bothered about putting in money. One guy even put in over £100 because customers checked out before their room charge bills went to reception (another procedural error on hotel's part, I think). But cos he was on shift he paid. Bonkers!!!

safesound

More fool the idiots agreeing to it I say. Tell them to whistle for it. I have worked in retail all my adult life and have NEVER had to pay out of my own pocket to balance a till. The only time I chose to was when I was running a charity shop and I was alone all day, the till was £20 down when I cashed it up. I put in the £20 as I didnt feel the charity should lose out because of my apparent incompetence but sure enough the next day when I set up the float for the same till drawer I found a £20 note had slipped underneath. The ONLY reason I did this was because there was no possibility of outside tampering as I floated the till, I used it all day (alone) and I cashed it up. Who is to say that had someone else used it or cashed it up the following day that the £20 would have been returned to me.
There's far too much potential for sticky fingers if the drawer is used by more than one person. Personally I'd be telling them either they give me my own drawer or they accept that I'm not liable for any shortage.

Googlewhacker

ManicMum wrote: »

??????????????????? Oh really? Well, that's me told then. Thank you for correcting my long held and obviously incorrect assumptions about myself. I defer to your higher knowledge.

No problem, always happy to help