How to stop theft by waiters and cashiers in a restaurant or bar

Most restaurant staff are honest. But a busy night, cash on the table and a system with no records make it easy for the few who are not, and hard for the owner to tell an honest mistake from a habit. Good controls protect your honest staff too: when the numbers are clear, nobody is suspected without reason.

Here are the common ways money and food leave a restaurant or bar, and what closes each one.

What are the common tricks?

Almost every case falls into a few patterns. The table lists them with the control that closes each.

No ticket, no food

The strongest control in a restaurant costs nothing: the kitchen and the bar prepare only what appears on a ticket or the kitchen screen. If a server cannot get food without ringing it in, they cannot sell it for cash and keep the money.

Make this a firm rule, including for the owner's friends and the staff meal. A staff meal should be rung in too, at zero or at a staff price, so the kitchen's food still matches the sales.

Give everyone their own login

Every sale, void, discount and refund should carry the name of the person who did it. That means one login per person, never a shared "cashier" account, and logins that are never shared, even on a busy night.

Roles keep each person to their job:

• Waiters open tables, add orders and send them to the kitchen.
• Cashiers take payments and print receipts.
• Kitchen staff see tickets and mark food ready.
• Managers approve voids, refunds and big discounts, and check every till close.

When someone leaves, close their login the same day.

Why do voids need a manager?

A void after the customer has paid is the most common till trick, because the bill looks normal at the table and the money disappears afterwards. When only a manager can void, the server has to explain why to someone else, at the time, and the void carries both names.

Honest voids happen: a dish sent back, a double tap on the screen. That is why the rule is approval, not a ban. What you are looking for is the pattern.

• Server AGH₵120.00
• Server BGH₵95.00
• Server CGH₵860.00
• Server DGH₵140.00

Source: Example figures

In this example, three servers have a similar small amount of voids. One has many times more. That does not prove anything by itself, but it tells you whose tables to watch and whose voids to ask about.

How should a cash-up work?

Every till opens with a counted float and closes with a counted drawer, and the count is compared with what the report says should be there. Do it at every shift change, not once at the end of the week, so a shortage has one name and one shift attached.

1. 1Open the till with a counted float, for example GH₵200 in small notes
2. 2Record every cash in and cash out, such as paying the gas seller
3. 3At close, count the cash without looking at the report
4. 4Compare the count with the expected cash
5. 5Match each MoMo payment to the wallet by transaction ID
6. 6Sign off and read the void and discount list

Worked example: one evening's close

A small difference now and then is normal: wrong change on a busy night. A shortage every time one person closes is not.

Keep MoMo going to the business

MoMo payments should only go to the business wallet, and every one should have its transaction ID recorded against the bill. A server who tells a customer to "send it to this number" is taking the payment out of your records entirely.

Put the business MoMo number on the table card, the menu and the receipt. At the close, match the MoMo total in the till to the wallet statement. Our guide on how to reconcile Mobile Money payments shows how.

Watch the bar as well as the till

Drinks are easy to give away, because a bottle has no ticket once it is open. Ring every drink in before it is poured or opened, keep bought-in drinks as stock, and count them weekly against sales. Read how to control ingredient stock and kitchen waste for the weekly count.

How does MPOS help stop theft?

MPOS gives each person their own login with a role: owner, manager, cashier, waiter or kitchen. Orders go to a kitchen screen or kitchen tickets, with separate printers for the kitchen and the bar. Voids, refunds and big discounts need a manager, and every void, refund, price change and cash-up is in the activity log.

Each till opens with a float, records cash in and out, and closes with a count, with X and Z reports. The owner gets an SMS alert when a till closes short, and the staff and payments reports show who sold what and how it was paid, from anywhere. MoMo is recorded with its transaction ID, and the money goes to your own wallet.

For the shop version of these controls, read stop stock and cash leakage in your mini-mart. For split bills, where many voids happen, read splitting and merging bills, and for the whole picture, the complete guide to running a restaurant in Ghana. You can start a free trial and set up your staff logins.