§ 17 · Money & operations

Cashier desk & treasury

Every cash transaction belongs to a session. You open a drawer before you take money and you close it against a count at the end — so that at any moment the system can say who took what, and where it is.

What it is for

Collecting money from students and accounting for it at the end of the day.

Who can do it

CashierSenior CashierBursarFinance Officer

Needed first
  • A register or drawer code
  • An invoice on the student's account
  • A payment method configured
Where it ends

A receipt for the student, and a reconciled session for the Bursar.

The Cashier Desk

The Cashier Desk screen with tabs Till, Post Payment, Payments and Receipts, Reversal and Waiver; the Till tab shows a Cashier Till / Cash Drawer panel with a No open drawer badge and fields for register/drawer code, currency and opening float, and an Open drawer button.
Cashier Desk. The page states its own rule: “Open a drawer before you start taking cash so every payment is tied to a reconciled session.”
TabWhat it does
TillOpen and close your cash drawer
Post PaymentRecord a payment against a student's invoice
Payments & ReceiptsWhat you have taken, and reprint a receipt
ReversalRequest the reversal of a payment posted in error
WaiverThe waiver view available to your role
The tabs you see are not all the tabs there are

The screen says so: “Each cashier task on its own tab — pick a tab to work on one thing at a time. Only the tabs your role allows are shown.” A Senior Cashier or the Bursar sees more here than a Cashier does. That is permissions working inside a screen.

Taking a payment

Open drawer→ Find the student→ Post payment→ Issue receipt→ Close & reconcile
Worked example

A student pays SSP 220,000 in cash

1. Open the drawerTill tab. Register / drawer code TILL-01, currency SSP, opening float 0 → Open drawer. The badge changes from No open drawer
2. Find the studentPost Payment tab → search by student number CUSS/BIT/JUB/26/00001. Confirm the name matches the person in front of you
3. Pick the invoiceApply against the specific invoice, not a general credit — an unapplied payment shows as a credit balance and confuses clearance later
4. Record itMethod Cash, amount 220,000.00, currency SSP. If it was a bank deposit, record the bank and the slip reference too — attribution matters at reconciliation
5. ReceiptIssue and print it. The student leaves with paper; the account updates immediately
6. Mistake?Do not post an opposite payment. Use the Reversal tab — a reversal is a request that is approved, and the audit trail keeps both entries
7. End of dayClose the drawer with a physical count. A difference is recorded, not hidden
8. Sign-offThe session goes to the Bursar as Cashier sessions — awaiting your sign-off
Never fix a payment by posting another one

Two wrong entries do not make a right balance — they make a reconciliation that nobody can explain in six months. Reversals exist for exactly this, they are approved rather than self-serve, and both the original and the reversal stay on the record.

Sessions and reconciliation

The Cashier Sessions screen listing sessions with their cashier, opening float, takings, counted amount, variance and sign-off status.
Cashier Sessions. One row per drawer, per cashier, per day. The Bursar signs each one off; the finance dashboard counts those still waiting.
The Reversals screen listing payment reversal requests and their approval status.
Reversals. Requested at the desk, approved in finance. The dashboard tile Payment reversals — awaiting your approval is the queue.
The Collections Register report listing payments collected over a period.
Collections Register. What was actually collected, by period and by cashier — the report to reconcile against the bank.
Unreconciled sessions are a real number

The finance dashboard has a tile for them. A session left open overnight keeps taking payments into yesterday's count, so its variance becomes meaningless. Close every drawer at the end of every day, even a quiet one.

More than one currency

The Exchange Rates screen listing currencies and their rates with effective dates.
Exchange Rates. Rates are dated. A payment is converted at the rate in force when it is posted, so a stale rate quietly misprices every receipt taken against it.

The finance dashboard has an Exchange rates — awaiting your approval queue: a new rate is proposed and approved, not simply typed in. Check that queue at the start of any day when the rate has moved, before the first foreign-currency payment is taken.

If the desk refuses

SymptomCauseFix
You cannot post a paymentNo drawer is openThe Till tab. The badge reads No open drawer
The student has no invoice to pay againstThey have not been billed — usually a fee-structure match failureStudent finance
Signing in bounces you back to the login pageYour role's landing page is one you may not openGo straight to /admin/finance/payments-desk, and report it to ICT
A tab you were told about is missingYour role does not have itAsk a Senior Cashier or the Bursar to do that task
The session will not closeA count has not been entered, or a payment is mid-flightComplete the count; a variance is allowed, a blank is not
A foreign-currency receipt looks wrongThe rate in force was staleExchange Rates — and request a reversal rather than adjusting the receipt