Understanding how the batch closing process and batch reporting work.
- Batch Close Process - When you close a batch, it creates a financial file containing all activity from the time that the batch was opened until the time that it was closed. This can span any period of time and is not restricted in any way by calendar days. Meaning, if you forget to close a register for a week, the batch will include all transactions over all seven days. If you close a batch 20 minutes after it was opened, the batch will include 20 minutes of activity - so a register can have multiple batches for a single day.
- Batch Opening - A new batch does not automatically start when a register is closed. When closing a register you are presented with a pop-up with a couple buttons - you have the option to press a button labeled 'Open Register' or a button labeled 'Log Out'. If you press the Open Register button a new batch will be started. If you press the Log Out button, a new batch will not start until the next time someone tries to open the register. So if you close a batch at night, log out, and someone logs into the register the next day, the old batch will end on one calendar day and the new batch will begin the next calendar day. This is an important distinction as you will see below.
- Close-out Reports (front register) - When you close out a register from the front end Action Menu, the system will generate a report showing the batch just closed, regardless of the batch open date.
- Register Reports (back-end Report menu) - When you generate a Register Balance report from the Report Menu, you will be asked to select a date or date range. This filter will look for all the batches that were opened on the selected day or during that date range. The filter does not use the batch close date. This is also a very important distinction.
Example: Assume that you opened Register A on 4/17/21 and Register B on 4/18/21 and closed both on 4/19/21. If you ran an 'all registers' Register Balance report with a date of 4/19/21, the report would return blank (as no batches were opened on that date). If you selected 4/17/21 as a date range, the report would show three days of Register A (as this was the only batch opened on 4/17/21 and the batch spanned 3 days). If you selected 4/18/21, the report will show two days of Register B activity. If you chose a date range of 4/17/21 - 4/18/21, the report would capture 5 days of register activity (3 days of Register A and 2 days of Register B).
Given the way that this report works, we highly recommend that you close all registers each night and open all registers each morning. Historically, stores did this without thought as they counted the cash in the cash drawer each night as part of the bank deposit and counted the cash drawer again in the morning when opening. With cashless registers, this requires a bit more thought.
The Register Balance report defaults to all stores/all registers. However, if you use the Store filter to select a store and then the Register filter to select an individual register, you can generate a report for just one batch. To the extent that your merchant statement reports by the terminal, this may allow you to reconcile a register with an attached terminal to your merchant statement, as shown in the screenshot below:
- Dashboard Reports - The dashboard reports are purely data-base and are not impacted by the batching process. So if your batches span multiple days, a batched-based Register report for a specific date will not match a Dashboard Report for that same date.
- Sales & Transaction reports - Other than the Register reports, all other sales and transaction reports are purely date-based and are not impacted by the batching process. So if your batches span multiple days, a Register report for a specific date will not match a Sales or Dashboard Report for that same date.
Best Practices :
- We recommend that each register is 'closed out' each evening by using the register closeout process and that a new batch is not immediately started at that time. In other words, when closing the register at the end of the night, press the 'Log Out' button and not the 'Open Register' button. That way when a user logs in the next morning, a new register batch is created on each register that morning - and the cut-off date/time of the register will match the date/time cut off of the credit card batch process.
- If it's a challenge to get people not to open a new batch in the evening, you can just close that batch in the morning. As long as the batch contains no transactions, this should solve the issue.
- The Open Register button was included to help retailers that batch multiple times a day, such as for each shift change. We do not recommend using this if you close registers once a day.
Following the steps above should solve most if not all of the issues that you are experiencing.