NSW Finance - Preparing and Banking Receipts

Note: This article is for the benefit of New South Wales schools only.

Hero understands that managing receipts, particularly cash, requires extensive security and accuracy.  The banking feature brings together reconciliation, deposit slips, verification checks and daily summaries of funds received.

The banking feature encompasses 4 processes - 

• Till Setup - Define the tills used to receive cash, cheques and money orders.  These may be in the canteen, library, school office or events centre.
• Till Session Closure - When till takings are ready for banking, close and reconcile the till contents.
• Generating a Deposit Slip - Bring all closed tills together to prepare the deposit slip to take with the banking.  Deposit slips need to be verified by an independent user.
• Generating a Daily Summary - Verified by the school Principal or Principal's delegate this is a daily summary of receipts (banked, unbanked or external to the banking process).

SETTING UP A NEW TILL

All payments receipted with a payment method of CASH, CHEQUE, MONEY ORDER, CREDIT CARD or EFTPOS require a till to be selected.  (Note: EFTPOS and CREDIT CARD processing will move to CPP once established).  In order to receive these payments, the tills must be setup and be active.

1. Navigate to the Administration menu. If you have a wide-screen device this will already be visible on the left-hand side of your screen. If not, click on the Administration menu icon at the top left-hand side of your screen.

2. Under the heading Administration click on Finance

3.  Click BANKING to access all processes relating to this article.

4.  Click TILLS to create a new till.

5.  Click the ADD icon at the bottom right of the screen to add a new till.

6.  Enter the name to be displayed when receiving payment in the Till Code and a full description in the Till Description.   The 'This till is in active use' slider determines if a till will be made available when receipting a payment.  

7.  Click SAVE to create the till.

8.  When receipting a payment the new till will be available for selection.  The default till will be the last till used by the specific staff member as most staff members will use the same till for all receipts.

9.  A till cannot be deleted if it has been used for receipting.  If a till is no longer in use, edit the till and click This till is in active use to disable the slider.

CLOSING A TILL SESSION

Funds received would not usually be kept in a till overnight, so at the end of most days the till session will be closed and the funds removed from the till to be placed in the safe.   Reconciliation of the contents will be carried out at that time.

A till session is associated with the user of the till so if multiple staff members are using a single till it is best to have a dedicated screen to accept the payments for that till.   This will result in that screen being the single user for that till.  

Only the user of till can close a till session.

1.  Navigate to BANKING > TILL SESSIONS

2.  If payments have been receipted for this till since the last till session closure, a CLOSE SESSION button will be available for the user who receipted the payment.   Click to close and reconcile the till.

3.  Reconcile the contents of the till by entering the denomination counts in the area provided. The total entered MUST equate to the Cash amount.   (Note:  if multiple users have receipted payments for the same till, reconciliation will need to be carried out in conjunction with each other).

4.  If the cash/cheques/money orders in the till do not equate to the cash/cheque/money order balance expected, and the issue cannot be resolved, a Discrepancy will need to be entered to enable the reconciliation to balance and proceed.

5.  To lodge a discrepancy click ADD A DISCREPANCY.  Enter the Amount and the Reason.  Click SAVE DISCREPANCY.

6.  The discrepancy amount will now be recorded and will enable the banking to proceed.  Click SAVE to accept the reconciliation.   The SAVE button will not be enabled if it fails to balance.

7.  The till session will now be visible under Closed Till Sessions and can be Viewed by any user with access.  It is also able to be edited up until the deposit slip is created.   You may need to edit the reconciliation if the missing discrepancy amount is located.

8.  If the funds are ready to be banked, the next step is to prepare the deposit slip to accompany the banking.

GENERATING A DEPOSIT SLIP

Deposit slips can include the takings from multiple tills.   Any till sessions that have been closed and have not yet been selected to be included in a deposit slip will be available for selection.

1.  Navigate to BANKING > DEPOSIT SLIPS.  All previously generated deposit slips will be visible for viewing.

2.  Click GENERATE DEPOSIT SLIP. 

3.  A list of recently closed till sessions will be displayed.  Select the till session(s) to be included in the banking.  Click GENERATE DEPOSIT SLIP.

4.  The Deposit Slip will bring together the reconciliations from all till sessions selected.  

5.  Click SAVE to confirm.  This will update the deposit slip number against the till sessions.

6.  A deposit slip requires double checking.  A different user needs to navigate to the deposit slip and click VIEW.  

7.  Scroll to the bottom of the deposit slip and click the certification statement.

8.  If any changes are required, these need to be carried out by the till user.