Petty cash log and policy template for a café or restaurant

Someone runs out for lemons, ice or a box of to-go lids, and pays with a twenty from the drawer. By Friday the drawer is short, there's a crumpled receipt in the office and another one nobody can find, and the till count says something is wrong with the cashier. Most "missing cash" in a small café is really petty cash nobody wrote down.

A petty cash fund keeps those small purchases out of the register and on paper. This post gives you a one-page policy, a slip, a running log and a weekly count sheet, built on the fixed-amount fund the IRS uses as its own example.

General information, not tax or accounting advice. Your bookkeeper or accountant decides how petty cash is booked and which expense account each purchase goes to.

How a fixed (imprest) fund works

The idea is simple, and the IRS walks through it in Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records:

• The fund has a fixed amount, say [$150]. In the IRS's example, "The total of the unspent petty cash and the amounts on the petty cash slips should equal the fixed amount of the fund."
• Every payment gets a slip. "Each time he makes a payment from this fund, he makes out a petty cash slip and attaches it to his receipt as proof of payment."
• When the slips add up, you top it back up by writing a check (or making a transfer) for exactly the total of the slips, which "restores the fund to its fixed amount". The slips and receipts go to the books with that check.

The same publication lists "Petty cash slips for small cash payments" among the supporting documents for business expenses, next to invoices and receipts. So the slip plus the receipt is your record of the expense.

At any moment, then: cash in the box + slips = the fund amount. If it doesn't, something is missing, and you know within a week.

Petty cash or a paid-out from the register?

Two different things, often mixed up:

Pick one route for small purchases and say so in the policy. Most cafés do better with petty cash and no register paid-outs, so the till count stays clean. Our cash handling post covers the till side.

The policy

Adapt the bracketed parts and keep it to one page.

[Café / restaurant name] — Petty cash policy

1. The fund

• The petty cash fund is [$150] at [location]. It's kept in [a locked cash box in the office safe], separate from the registers and the safe's change fund.
• The custodian is [name / role]. Backup custodian: [name / role]. Only they open the box.

2. What petty cash is for

• Small, unplanned purchases for the business up to [$40] each: [produce or ice run, cleaning supplies, small hardware, postage, parking for a business errand].
• Anything over [$40], or anything not on this list, needs approval from [owner / GM] first, by [text / in person].

3. What petty cash is not for

• Wages, tips, bonuses or advances to staff (these go through payroll)
• Personal loans or IOUs
• Cashing checks or making change for the registers
• Vendor invoices that are billed to our account
• Personal purchases, even if paid back later

4. Every payment

• Fill in a petty cash slip: date, who was paid, what for, amount, who took the cash.
• Bring back the receipt and the change the same day. Staple the receipt to the slip.
• The custodian checks the change against the slip and signs it.

5. No receipt

• Fill in the slip, write "no receipt" and why, and have [the owner / GM] sign it. Missing receipts more than [once a month] go to [the owner].

6. Counting and topping up

• The custodian counts the fund every [Monday], and whenever the custodian changes.
• Cash + slips must equal [$150]. A difference over [$2] is written on the count sheet and reported to [the owner] the same day.
• When the cash falls below [$50], the slips go to [the bookkeeper], and the fund is topped back up to [$150] by [check / transfer] for exactly the total of the slips.

7. If you don't follow it

• Cash taken without a slip is treated as a cash shortage under our [cash handling / coaching] steps.

I have read and understand this policy. Name: ………………………… Signature: ………………………… Date: ……………

The petty cash slip

Print them in pads, numbered, or pre-number a stack by hand.

Petty cash slip No. [0042]

Date: …………… Amount: $ ……………

Paid to (store or person): …………………………

What for: …………………………

Category: ☐ Food & beverage ☐ Supplies ☐ Repairs ☐ Office ☐ Other: ……………

Receipt attached: ☐ Yes ☐ No (reason: ………………………… · approved by: ……………)

Cash taken by: ………………………… Change returned: $ …………… Custodian: ……………

The categories should match lines in your chart of accounts, so the bookkeeper can enter the slips without guessing. Food bought with petty cash belongs in your food cost like any other purchase.

The petty cash log

One running sheet kept in the box. Every slip is a line.

Fund amount: [$150] · Topped up on: [date] · Check / transfer no.: [ ]

The weekly count sheet

Petty cash count · [location]

Date: …………… Counted by: ………………………… Witness: …………………………

If E isn't zero: what happened? …………………………

Topped up today? ☐ Yes, $ …………… by [check / transfer no.] ☐ No

A count with a witness takes a minute and protects the custodian as much as the business.

How long to keep the slips

Keep the slips and receipts with the rest of your books. The IRS says you keep records "as long as they may be needed for the administration of any provision of the Internal Revenue Code"; for most income tax situations that means 3 years after you file the return, with longer periods for others (for example, 6 years if you leave out more than 25% of your gross income, and no limit for a fraudulent or unfiled return), and employment tax records for at least 4 years (Publication 583, How long to keep records). Many owners simply file each top-up's slips in a dated envelope and keep the envelopes with the year's books.

Your petty cash checklist

• [ ] Fund amount set and the box locked, apart from the tills
• [ ] One custodian and one backup named
• [ ] "For" and "not for" lists written, with a per-purchase limit
• [ ] Numbered slips, receipts stapled on
• [ ] A running log in the box
• [ ] A weekly count with a witness; differences reported the same day
• [ ] Top-ups for exactly the total of the slips
• [ ] Slips and receipts kept with the books

Where Mays fits

Mays doesn't have a petty cash fund or a petty cash ledger. What you can build:

• A purchase log your staff fill in on their phone. Under Tasks → Types, build a Petty cash purchase form with a Repeatable rows field, each row with a Money amount ($), a Text field for what it was, a Single choice for the category and, if you buy from a regular vendor, a Vendor field. Add a Photo field for the receipt and a Signature for the custodian. Put it on a daily closing checklist (Log today's petty cash purchases). See Building custom forms.
• The weekly count. A second form with a Cash count (coins/bills) field adds up the bills and coins for you; put it on a Weekly checklist on count day. The Register / Cash count preset is a good starting point. See Creating a checklist template.
• Totals for the bookkeeper. Tasks → Data lists every submission of the form, and Export CSV downloads them. Photos and signatures aren't in the table or the export, so the receipt photo stays with the completed task. See Task Data.
• A difference, written down. Post it in the Logbook under a category with Needs follow-up ticked, and the location's other managers are notified. See The manager logbook.

What Mays doesn't do: it doesn't keep a running petty cash balance, warn when the fund runs low, or match slips to a top-up, and the forms don't post to your accounting software. Keep the box, the slips and the count sheet as the record, and use the forms to make the daily entries easy.

Small money, kept in one place

Fix the amount, name one custodian, slip every dollar out and count it every week with a witness. Cash plus slips equals the fund, every time. When it doesn't, the count sheet tells you the week it happened, not the quarter.

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