Cash at reception for a monthly invoice
Why a member's cash for a monthly invoice belongs in a receipt against that invoice, not a till sale, and how to keep the cash drawer straight.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A member walks up to reception with a reminder e-mail on their phone and cash in hand. "I'd like to pay my membership for this month." The receptionist does the natural thing: rings up a membership on the till, takes the cash and e-mails the till receipt. The member leaves happy.
A week later, the same member gets another overdue reminder, and phones in annoyed. Meanwhile your books show that month's membership twice and the cash once. Nothing malicious happened; the receptionist simply used the wrong tool. This article explains the difference between a till sale and a payment against an invoice, and sets up a front-desk routine that keeps them apart.
Till sales and invoice receipts are different records
When you invoice a member for their monthly fee, issuing the invoice already did the work of recording the sale. It posted to the ledger as an amount the member owes, sales and output VAT. What is still missing is the payment.
A till sale is a complete sale in its own right. Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step, with the payment to its own account, revenue and output VAT. The server refuses any till sale that is not paid in full, so it is designed for things bought and paid for on the spot: a day pass, a bottle of water, a towel.
| Invoice receipt | Till sale | |
|---|---|---|
| What it records | Payment of something already invoiced | A new sale, paid there and then |
| Revenue and VAT | Already posted when the invoice was issued | Posted again by the sale |
| What the member owes afterwards | Less, by the amount paid | Unchanged |
Investopedia's article on accounts receivable explains money owed for services delivered but not yet paid for. A monthly membership invoice is exactly that, and the cash at reception settles it; it is not a new sale.
What goes wrong if an invoice is rung up as a new sale
Ringing the monthly fee through the till causes three problems at once:
- Income is counted twice. The invoice already posted the membership as sales; the till sale posts it again, with output VAT again.
- The invoice stays unpaid. Receivables still shows the member as owing, and credit control keeps sending overdue reminders, which go out once a day by default.
- The cash is in the wrong place. The drawer is right on the day, but your debtors are wrong for as long as nobody notices.
Fixing it afterwards means a supervisor refunding or voiding the till sale and someone recording the receipt properly, which is far more work than getting it right at the desk.
Recording the cash against the invoice
Payments for invoices are recorded in receivables. A payment can be recorded against one invoice or spread across all of a member's invoices. A part payment leaves the invoice part-paid, and anything paid over is held on the member's account for next month.
At the desk:
- Find the member's open invoice and check the amount due.
- Take the cash and count it in front of the member.
- Record the payment against the invoice, with today's date.
- Give the member a written receipt from a numbered receipt book, or send them confirmation by e-mail.
- Put the cash in a separate bag marked "invoice payments", not in the till drawer.
When that cash is banked and the deposit appears on the statement, remember that matching a bank receipt to a customer invoice does not record the payment on the invoice; it must also be recorded in receivables. If the receptionist already recorded the receipt in step three, the banking side is just matching the deposit.
Account sales at the till and the Wholesale add-on they need
You may notice that the till can charge a sale to a customer's account. A till sale charged to a trade customer's account writes a receivables invoice and checks the account's hold and credit limit, unless a supervisor or manager overrides it with a reason. Trade customers are created on the Wholesale screen, which needs the Wholesale add-on.
That feature works in the other direction: it creates an invoice for something sold now, to be paid later. It does not settle an invoice that already exists. It suits a corporate client whose staff buy drinks and pay monthly, not a member paying an existing membership invoice in cash.
Keeping the cash drawer and the receipts in step at cash-up
At cash-up, the cashier counts the drawer by notes and coins, and the server works out the expected cash, records the difference and posts it to cash over and short. The expected cash comes from the till's own sales. Cash for invoices that went into the drawer would show up as a surplus, and the difference would be posted to cash over and short, which is wrong.
That is why invoice cash stays out of the drawer. At the end of each shift, the receptionist totals the invoice-payments bag, checks it against the receipts recorded in receivables that day, and hands both to the manager with the till's cash-up.
For choosing between the till and an invoice for each kind of charge, read membership at the till or on an invoice. For handing the desk over between shifts, see reception shifts on one till, and for collecting monthly fees without debit orders, see collecting membership fees without debit orders.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
