The cash drawer manages your cash transactions and acts as the physical drawer at your reception desk. It allows you to have to track and control your transactions with just a few clicks.
This article offers a general overview of the Cash Drawer feature within Cloudbeds PMS.
Cloudbeds believes every lodging business is unique. We have tools for every size and budget to establish and grow. Reach out to our Support Team for more information on each available package.
If you are not yet a Cloudbeds customer, please click here to access our Pricing Guide and schedule a Demo.
Access and use
- Go to the Main menu
- Click on Cash Drawer
- Select the corresponding option, based on your requirements
- Cash Drawer is only used for payments in cash
- Operations with credit cards and other payment methods will not be included in your cash drawer
- If the Cash Drawer feature is not available/visible to your user, check out the Role Privileges and make sure that it has been enabled accordingly.
Manage Cash Drawers
- In the Main menu, click on the Cash Drawer feature and select Create/Modify Cash Drawers
- Click on +Cash Drawer
- Add the drawer name
- Add the Starting balance (the amount of cash in the cash drawer at the beginning of the shift)
- Click on Save Cash Drawer
- In the Main menu, click on the Cash Drawer feature and select Create/Modify Cash Drawers
- Click on the pencil icon to edit the required cash drawer
- Edit the Cash Drawer name
- Click on Save Cash Drawer
- To deactivate a Cash Drawer, simply switch the toggle next to the corresponding Cash Drawer. The toggle color will change from green to gray once deactivated.
- Click on it one more time to activate it back again.
- In the Main menu, click on the Cash Drawer feature and select Create/Modify Cash Drawers
- Click on the (x) icon to delete the required cash drawer
- Click on Delete Cash Drawer
- In the Main menu, click on the Cash Drawer feature and select Access Open Drawers
- Select the desired cash drawer
- Check the summary for the selected drawer
Other options
- Filter/group transactions by account number, reservation number, room number, and name. You can also group them by date, room, guest name, and reservation number
- Add or remove cash once you chose from either of these two options, you will be able to add the cash amount that you are adding or withdrawing and also leave a note to this action. It will not be connected to any reservation
- Check the cash drawer transactions and their total
If you are using the Multi-Currency feature, you will be able add or remove cash in foreign currencies. Click on the following article to learn more: How does it work with Cash Drawer?
- In the Main menu, click on the Cash Drawer feature and click on Open Cash Drawer
- Select the Cash Drawer to open
- Enter the Starting Balance
- Add notes, if needed
- Click on Continue
Learn how to Close Cash Drawer and generate a cashier's report.
Frequently asked questions
The Cash Drawer mirrors the actual cash drawers at the property. To manage your cash drawers correctly (when you have multiple users), we recommend you to open the same amount of cash drawers in the system, as you have for each user at the property. Each user will manage their own cash drawer separately.
- To use Cash Drawer functionality by different users, create one cash drawer under each user name
- If the user is already created in the system, refer to this section for more information about creating cash drawers.
- If you do not have a user created, please, refer to the following article for more details on how to Add, edit or disable users
Check the following scenarios of how the cash drawer functionality works when used by multiple users:
Scenario 1
- User Role: Administrator
- Cash Drawer: The user has an open cash drawer
- Action: The user tries to add a cash transaction
- Result: The user will be able to add cash transactions only to the cash drawer created under his user, it's not possible to add cash payment to another opened cash drawer created by a different user.
Scenario 2
- User Role: Administrator
- Cash Drawer: The user doesn't have an open cash drawer
- Action: The user tries to add a cash transaction
- Result: The user will be able to choose and add the payment to the currently opened cash drawer by another user (if there is one).
Scenario 3
- User: Property Owner
- Cash Drawer: The user has (or doesn't have) an open cash drawer
- Action: The user tries to add a cash transaction on a reservation
- Result: Only the Property Owner will be able to choose between all the currently opened cash drawers in the system.
The minimum permissions for a user to be able to use cash as a payment method are:
- Open Cash Drawers
- Add Cash Transactions without having drawer open
These cash drawer permissions/privileges above allow users to open cash drawers when adding payments on guest's folio, but they cannot view the content or access the cash drawer settings.
Learn more about Role privileges
- When the front desk staff opens the cash drawer and puts the opening balance of the cash drawer, this information will not affect the transaction report as the funds are allotted to the cash drawer already. Depending on how your property sets the cash drawer, it is best to have the allotted amount for starting balance and ending balance be the same
- If you are adding or removing cash from the cash drawer, those transactions will appear as payments or payouts and will affect the day's payment total. This is why is recommended to open cash drawers with the starting balance that is physically in the drawer.
