Last updated: May 8, 2026, 2:54 PM
Troubleshoot cash drawer hardware, balance discrepancies, cash-in-hand mismatches, and incomplete shift reviews in Toast Web and on the POS.
In this Article:
Applies to: Toast POS, Toast Web
Permissions needed:
What you'll accomplish: Identify which cash drawer or shift review issue you're seeing, follow the matching fix, and confirm the result on the Drawer History or Shift report.
Find your symptom in the table below and follow the linked fix.
| Symptom | Most common cause | Quick fix | Self-service? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash drawer won't open / not opening | Cable, printer, device setting, or permission issue | See Get Help With Cash Drawers for the full hardware and settings checklist | Yes |
| Drawer won't open even with the key | Mechanical jam or broken release | Contact Customer Care for hardware repair | No |
| Cash drawer balance is short or over | Starting balance not included at close-out, mistracked payment, or unrecorded entry | Run the Drawer History report and use Update Entries to correct | Yes |
| Cash payment showing as cash in hand instead of in the drawer | Device Setup > Open Cash Drawer set to No, or wrong drawer assigned | Reassign device settings, void the misrouted payment, and re-add it | Yes |
| Shift review calculates cash incorrectly | Calculate-cash-separately setting or undeclared cash sales | Review Shift Review setup and reconcile with Drawer History | Yes |
| Shift review shows open checks but they're closed | Sync delay between POS and reporting | Wait until end of day for sync to complete | Yes |
| Shift review left open in the current business week | Employee skipped reconcile or didn't close shift | Reopen the shift on the POS — see Shift Review Overview | Yes |
| Shift review left open in a prior business week | POS can't reopen older shifts | Use Drawer History > Update Entries in Toast Web; for shifts older than the current business week, contact Customer Care | Mixed |
| Tips paid out look like a cash shortage | Tip Out and Pay Out columns reduce expected cash | Compare Drawer History columns side-by-side | Yes |
| Specific dollar discrepancy on a specific date | Backend data investigation required | Contact Customer Care with the date, location, amount, and employee name | No |
The full troubleshooting flow for a cash drawer that won't open lives in Get Help With Cash Drawers. That article walks through:
Expected outcome: The cash drawer opens on a No Sale or cash payment after working through the linked checklist.
If the drawer still won't open after the full hardware and settings checklist, see Before you contact Customer Care.
If the cash in a drawer doesn't match the expected balance, the most common cause is that the starting cash amount was not included in the final count when the drawer was closed. Use the steps below to confirm the source of the discrepancy and correct it.
To confirm the discrepancy:
To correct the closing balance (requires permission 4.12 Edit Historical Data):
Expected outcome: The Drawer History report shows the corrected closing balance and the Expected/Actual deposit line resolves to no overage or shortage. The change appears as a line entry in the Cash Entries for Cash Drawer section of the report.
Note: Use Update Entries carefully. Mistakes made through this button can complicate the cash record further; the change is logged as a manual adjustment.
If the discrepancy is for a specific dollar amount on a specific date and the steps above don't surface a cause, see Before you contact Customer Care.
If a cash payment was tracked as cash in hand (also called cash on hand) when it should have gone into a cash drawer — or vice versa — there are two things to check: the device setting that controls the drawer, and the misrouted payment itself.
To check the device setting:
To find and correct the misrouted payment (requires permission 4.1 Sales Reports):
Expected outcome: The voided payment no longer appears against the wrong drawer, and the re-added payment appears in the right drawer (or as cash in hand) on the next refresh of the Shift Review and Drawer History reports.
A common cause of an incorrect shift review cash amount is the setting that calculates cash in hand and cash in the drawer separately. This setting affects how an employee's shift review calculates cash received and can produce what looks like a discrepancy.
To review the setting, see Customize Shift Review Settings.
Other causes of incorrect shift review cash:
Expected outcome: After confirming the calculation setting matches your operations, the shift review numbers reconcile against the Drawer History report.
Important: Train employees to complete shift reviews and declare cash sales at the end of every shift to prevent calculation errors.
During a shift review, some checks may show as open even when they are all closed. This is a syncing issue between the POS and reporting.
Expected outcome: Wait until the end of day for all checks to sync. The checks should reflect their correct status by the next morning.
If checks are still showing as open after the next business day, see Before you contact Customer Care.
If a shift review wasn't completed, cash may not have been collected or tips paid out. The fix depends on whether the shift is in the current business week or a prior business week.
Reopen the shift directly on the POS. For step-by-step instructions, see Shift Review Overview > Reopen a shift.
Important: Reopening a shift deletes the previous Tip Out and Cash Collected entries. The employee will need to turn in cash and collect tips again after making any changes.
Older shifts can no longer be reopened from the POS. Use Update Entries in Toast Web to correct the cash collected and tips paid out:
Cash entry definitions:
Expected outcome: The Drawer History report shows the new entries on the affected date, and the cash collected and tips paid out are correctly attributed.
The same correction is also possible from the POS. On the new POS Cash Drawers experience, navigate to Cash Management > Cash Drawers > Closed, select the drawer, then select Adjust Closing Entries to add or remove cash entries before re-closing the drawer.
If the shift is older than the current business week and Drawer History does not surface the cash drawer for that date, see Before you contact Customer Care.
If the Drawer History report shows a cash shortage on a drawer that balanced correctly during shift review, a common cause is that tips paid out (Tip Out, Pay Out, or Cash Drop entries) reduced the cash in the drawer as expected, but were read as a shortage instead of a planned outflow.
To investigate:
Expected outcome: The Drawer History row reconciles when tracked outflows are accounted for. No correction is needed.
For the full list of Drawer History column definitions, see Cash Drawer Reports Overview.
If a cash payment was applied to the wrong cash drawer — for example, a bar receipt closed out under the dining room drawer instead of the bar drawer — the fix is to void the payment and re-add it from a POS that's pointed at the correct drawer.
Important: This change requires permission 4.1 Sales Reports and may also require manager approval depending on your restaurant's settings. Voiding payments on already-closed drawers can complicate the cash record; proceed with caution.
To find and reassign the payment:
Expected outcome: On the next refresh of Shift Review and Drawer History, the payment appears in the correct drawer and the original (wrong) drawer no longer carries it.
If the affected drawer is from a prior business week or the void/re-add path can't be completed, see Before you contact Customer Care.
Cash in hand (also called cash on hand) refers to cash collected by employees during their shift without using a physical cash drawer. Below are the cash-in-hand issues most often seen with how to resolve each.
If Cash in Hand is higher than Cash Sales, common causes include:
To investigate: Verify all transactions were recorded in the Cash Drawer History report and the Orders report. Check whether a different team member closed a check that another opened.
Common causes:
Note: If a server completes their shift review for the prior day's shift, reports aggregate the cash under the current day, which can look like a discrepancy. Train employees to complete the shift review on the same day as the shift.
Voiding a cash payment does not reduce the Cash in Hand balance. Handle voided cash payments carefully to avoid misreported amounts.
In Cash in Hand mode, bartenders don't close a cash drawer. They reconcile their personal cash banks at the end of the shift, and Toast records the totals under the Cash in Hand category.
If the starting balance varies each day, it may indicate that the starting balance is not being recorded correctly, depending on how the balance reset settings are configured.
To verify this in Toast Web:
The starting balance must be included when you count the drawer at close-out, or the drawer will appear short. For details, see Set Up Cash Drawers.
The Drawer History report is available in two locations in Toast Web:
For column definitions and what each report shows, see Cash Drawer Reports Overview.
Expected Deposit is the cash expected based on the starting cash and tracked transactions that are reflected based on the cash payments and cash entries, while Actual Deposit is what was counted and recorded during the deposit. A difference between the two is a deposit overage or shortage. To investigate, compare both numbers in the Drawer History report and check whether tip-outs, pay-outs, cash drops, or unrecorded payments account for the difference. For column definitions, see Cash Drawer Reports Overview.
Some cash drawer and shift review issues require backend access or hardware repair that can't be self-served. Contact Customer Care when:
To speed up the call, have the following ready: