Question about a charity shop till

SAHM2014

Hello everyone, I've been reading for a long time but never posted until now. I'm hoping someone might be able to answer my question about the till process in a charity shop.

DD is 14 and volunteers in a charity shop at weekends. She likes it and enjoys helping out but she's not particularly confident when she's at the front of the shop and unfortunately she did something wrong. I'm hoping someone might be able to explain the till process to me, mostly for my own understanding.

The till has buttons on it which you are supposed to select depending on what group the item being purchased, falls into. A customer was buying a brand new item and DD selected the wrong button and chose something else instead of the New Item button she was supposed to opt for. This caused some inconvenience and the manager had to print out stuff from the till and manually sort things out. She was told she cost the shop money and she got the feeling the manager wasn't best pleased with her.

I can't work out why. Might this be something to do with VAT in some way? Perhaps it gets added to some things but not others? I'm wondering if anyone can explain it for me? If the item cost is rung in correctly, how could selecting the wrong group cost the shop money?

I did wonder if she got confused about what she was told at the time, I expect she would have felt very embarrassed and may not have heard properly but she says she did ring in the correct amount and it was just the group button she got wrong, which is why my curiosity was piqued.

greyteam1959

I have been using tills in my own business for 30 years now & still make mistakes.
I think the only way the shop could have 'lost money' would have been the VAT element of the sale.
20% could be a significant amount on a large sale.e
You ring a sale into the till to record vatable sales.
ie button 1 = Zero VAT button 2 = No VAT button 3 = VAT @20% button 4=VAT @ 10% etc etc depending on how the till is set up.
Amount of sale then a category then subtotal.
The manger could have rectified this error dead easy & not made such a fuss about it.......
Void the first transaction, then show the young lady the correct way to ring it thro the tilll.
He or she has been a bit heavy handed with a young member of staff I think !!!
HTH

Valli

She's 14; she volunteers. I hope you're proud of her and I hope the manager has the good sense to apologise for the way he/she handled a genuine mistake.

Bet the manager's paid, too!

SAHM2014

Thank you very much to you both.

Mervyn you have confirmed my suspicion about VAT perhaps being the issue.

Valli, yes I am very proud of her, she's a good girl with a kind heart.

colino

Probably the "Manager" was out of their depth with such a basic and common mistake and was flustered at their basic incompetence being shown up!

BobQ

Another possibility is if the manager is paid she was referring to the waste in her time sorting it out.

Do charities pay VAT on sales?

anamenottaken

BobQ wrote: »

Another possibility is if the manager is paid she was referring to the waste in her time sorting it out.

Do charities pay VAT on sales?

AIUI, in charity shops:
donated goods = zero rate
normal trade goods = 20% (or zero where commercial organisation would charge the same, eg for books)