What a till sale posts to your books

The journal each till sale writes in Achekam, account by account, whether to post per sale or per session, and what your accountant checks at month end.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Retail businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A shop's monthly figures are built from thousands of small moments at the counter. If you have ever opened a trial balance and wondered how a day of beeping scanners became those totals, the answer is simple: each sale writes its own entry in the books.

Knowing what that entry looks like takes much of the mystery out of month end. It tells you which account should agree with the cash count, which should agree with the bank, and where a margin problem would show up first.

This article sets out what Achekam's till posts to the ledger, the choice between a journal per sale and a daily summary, and what your accountant should review. It applies to shops in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

A sale and its journal happen together

Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step. There is no overnight batch and no separate button to push sales to the ledger. If the sale is on the server, it is in the books.

That one journal carries four things:

• the money received, split by how the customer paid;
• the revenue, before VAT;
• the output VAT;
• the cost of the goods sold, taken out of inventory.

Walking through one sale

A customer buys a kettle and a box of teabags, paying part in cash and the rest by card on the bank's terminal.

The journal debits the cash account (1050) with the cash part and the card account (1060) with the card part. It credits revenue (4000) with the price before VAT and output VAT (2150) with the VAT. Those lines balance.

In the same journal, cost of sales (5000 or 5100) is debited and inventory (1300) credited with the cost of the kettle and the teabags, at each product's cost price. The stock of both products drops at the till's location at the same moment, and the receipt the customer takes away is a PDF made from that posted sale.

Nobody re-keys anything. The bookkeeper's job shifts from typing in sales to checking that each account behaves as expected.

One account per way of paying

Keeping money apart by payment method is what makes later reconciliation possible:

The cash account should agree with what was counted and banked. The card account should agree with what the bank terminal settles. A gateway's clearing account should come back down whenever that gateway pays out. The cash side of this is covered in safe drops, cash paid out and banking the takings.

Stock, cost and three limits to know

A till sale takes the sold quantity off stock at the till's location, and it will not let stock go negative unless the business has allowed negative stock.

Three limits affect how your accountant reads the numbers:

• One cost price per product. Cost of sales uses the single cost price typed on the product. There is no FIFO or weighted-average costing. The IFRS Foundation's summary of IAS 2 Inventories explains how the cost of inventories is determined and which cost formulas may be used, which is worth reading with your accountant.
• No edit screen yet. No screen lets a business change a product's price, cost or VAT treatment after creating it, so enter the cost price carefully when the product is set up.
• Only till movements reach the ledger. Stock counts, wastage, transfers and opening quantities do not post to the general ledger; only till sales and till returns move the inventory account. At period end, the inventory account has to be brought into line with the physical count by journal.

A journal per sale, or one per session

A business can choose whether the till posts one journal per sale or one summary journal per till session per day.

Per-sale journals let you trace any receipt straight to the ledger, which helps when a single transaction is queried. A daily summary keeps the general ledger shorter and easier to read for a busy shop. Each sale still has its own receipt either way. Agree the setting with your accountant before trading starts, and avoid switching back and forth during a month.

Gateway payouts and their fees

When a customer pays by scanning a QR code for a gateway's pay page, the money does not land in your bank straight away. The gateway holds it and later pays out a total, less its fees.

Achekam records each payout, including M-Pesa, against that gateway's clearing account with its fees. You can record a payout by hand, or from Paystack's and Flutterwave's own payout lists. Done every week or so, this keeps each clearing account close to what the gateway still owes you and turns fees into a visible expense rather than an unexplained gap.

What your accountant reviews at month end

• Revenue and VAT. Posted till sales can be listed by VAT rate and tax code for any period. Compare the listing with the revenue and output VAT accounts. South African shops will find more in VAT on mixed baskets.
• Cash. The cash account against counted cash-ups and recorded bank deposits, and the balance on cash over and short.
• Card and clearing accounts. Each should run down to what the bank or gateway actually paid, with fees recorded.
• Inventory. The account against a physical count, with the adjustment journal posted.
• Margins. Products whose cost price looks wrong, and discounting that is thinning gross margin; see setting cashier discount limits.
• Currency, for Nigerian and Kenyan shops. The ledger screens currently show amounts in rand and the chart of accounts is stored in ZAR, even for a Nigerian or Kenyan business. Make sure whoever reads your figures knows this.

Ring up one test sale with two ways of paying, open the journal it posts, and walk through it with your accountant. Once you both recognise every line, month end becomes a matter of checking accounts rather than rebuilding them.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.