Whether you run a shopfront or a wholesale counter, cash and near-cash receipts need a daily story: opening float, recorded sales, deposits, and unexplained variance.
The person who opens the bank portal to confirm deposits should not be the same person who prepared the deposit slip when volumes allow any split at all.
During walkthroughs we ask staff to narrate a real Tuesday rather than recite the manual. Gaps appear when busy days skip the second count or when refunds bypass the register log.
Electronic receipts and QR payments still need reconciliation to the merchant statement; treating them as 'already controlled by the bank' leaves timing differences unexplained.
A modest sample of twenty deposit days often reveals whether variance explanations are genuine notes or blank lines filled after the fact.