Shift & Day-End Fundamentals
Understand business days, multiple shifts, and the relationship between shifts, cash drawers, and day end.
- How Shifts and Day End Work Together
- How to Use Multiple Shifts in One Business Day
- How Business Dates Work Across Midnight
How Shifts and Day End Work Together
A shift records activity for a cash drawer during a working period. A day end groups every shift and invoice for one business date and then locks that date when it is closed.
Typical sequence
- Choose a cash drawer.
- Open a shift and enter the starting cash.
- Process sales, refunds, expenses, and other register activity.
- Count the cash and close the shift.
- After all shifts are closed, review and close day end.
When the first shift opens and no day end is active, the system creates a new day end automatically. Additional shifts opened during that business date belong to the current day end.
How to Use Multiple Shifts in One Business Day
You can run more than one shift under the same day end. This is useful for morning and evening teams, employee handoffs, or separate cash drawers.
Example
A store may open a morning shift, close it at the staff handoff, and open an evening shift without closing the business day. Both shifts remain part of the same day end.
Best practice
- Close the outgoing shift and count its cash.
- Record the amount left in the drawer for the next shift.
- Open the next shift using that amount or a fresh count.
- Close day end only after every shift for the business date is closed.
The day may last 12 hours, 24 hours, or cross midnight. Keep shifts under the intended business date until operations for that day are complete.
How Business Dates Work Across Midnight
The POS uses the active business date, not simply the clock changing at midnight, to organize the day. This prevents late-night sales from being separated from the store day they belong to.
Choose a closing routine
- Manual day end: a manager reviews the day and closes it when operations are complete.
- Automatic day end: the system attempts closure at the configured local time.
Your location time zone controls the schedule. Set the correct time zone in General Settings before relying on automatic day end.
Do not close day end while a shift is still open. The system requires open shifts to be resolved first.