till-reconcile

---
name: till-reconcile
description: Turns your till's Z readings, your card settlement reports and your cash count into a daily reconciliation that shows the exact difference between what the till says you took and what actually reached the bank, a discrepancy log broken down by shift and by payment type, the HMRC daily gross takings record your VAT scheme requires, and a six year filing structure so the record survives a compliance check. Use every trading day, and build the process once before you ever need it for a dispute or an inspection.
---

# The difference between the till and the bank, found the same day it happens, not the same month

You give this your till's Z reading for the day, the card terminal's settlement or batch report, the cash counted and banked, and, where you have one, the X reading taken mid-shift. You get back a daily reconciliation that states the till figure, the card figure, the cash figure and the gap between them in pounds and pence, a discrepancy log that records every day the gap is not zero and why, the daily gross takings record your VAT retail scheme requires you to hold, and a filing structure that keeps six years of it. It will not tell you what a normal daily variance looks like for a business your size, because no published figure exists for a single independent venue, and a target borrowed from somewhere else will make you chase noise or ignore a real problem.

## What it does

1. **Fix what a Z reading actually is, and never let it be taken twice.** A Z reading closes the till's sales period and resets its running totals to zero; an X reading reads the same totals without resetting them, which is why a mid-shift check uses X and the end of day uses Z. HMRC's own retail scheme guidance is direct about what the resulting figure is for: "It is this figure and not simply cash on hand which you must use when calculating output tax due under your retail scheme." A second Z reading taken by mistake zeros a total that was never reconciled, and the gap it leaves behind cannot be recovered from the till, only guessed at.

2. **Take the Z reading at the same point every day, and record who took it.** The reading should happen after the last sale of the trading day and before any cash is removed for banking, counted by the same method every time. Record the date, the time, the till or terminal reference where there is more than one, and the name of the person who took it. A reading taken at an inconsistent point in the day, sometimes before a late table cashes out and sometimes after, makes every day's figure incomparable with the last, which defeats the purpose of reconciling daily at all.

3. **Separate the till total into its payment types before comparing anything.** The Z reading should break the day's sales into cash, card and any other tender, such as a gift voucher or an account charge. Write each figure down separately. A single combined total hides which payment type the discrepancy sits in, and a card shortfall and a cash shortfall have different causes and different fixes.

4. **Match the card figure against the terminal's own settlement report, not against the Z reading alone.** The till records what was rung through as a card sale; the terminal's settlement or batch report records what was actually authorised and sent for settlement. The two should match. Where they do not, the gap is usually a declined or voided transaction rung into the till total but never settled, or a settlement that landed a day later than the sale, and either explanation is written down, not assumed.

5. **Count the cash independently of the till figure, then compare, never adjust one to match the other.** Two people counting the drawer separately and agreeing a total is the control that catches a slip; one person counting once and writing down whatever makes the numbers match is not a reconciliation, it is a record with the discrepancy already removed from it. Record the counted cash, the till's cash figure, and the difference, whichever direction it runs.

6. **Log every non-zero difference the same day, with a reason, not a running assumption that it evens out.** A discrepancy log entry records the date, the payment type, the amount, and the stated reason: a till error corrected at the time, a walkout, a float miscount, a refund processed outside the till, or unexplained. "Unexplained" is a valid entry. A guessed reason written down to close the day's log is not, and it is the entry that makes the log useless the one time it is actually needed, for a dispute with a member of staff or an HMRC compliance check.

7. **Build the daily gross takings record your retail scheme requires, from the reconciled figures, not from the raw till total.** Retail scheme guidance is explicit that the DGT record is "a crucial part of your retail scheme records" and that you "must keep a record of your DGT in accordance with the scheme conditions" from the day you start using the scheme. The DGT figure is the reconciled day's takings across all tender types, adjusted for anything the scheme notice for your specific scheme requires excluded, such as certain deposits or non-business income. Use the reconciled figure from steps 3 to 5, because a DGT record built from an unreconciled till total inherits every error the reconciliation exists to catch.

8. **File every day's Z reading, settlement report and reconciliation for six years, and know the shorter clock that runs alongside it.** VAT Notice 700/21 states plainly: "Generally, you must keep all your business records for VAT purposes for at least 6 years," and names "records of daily takings such as till rolls" specifically among the records that duty covers. A sole trader also carries the Self Assessment record-keeping duty, which requires records to be kept "for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year," and a private limited company carries a Companies Act 2006 duty to preserve accounting records "for three years from the date on which they are made." Where more than one duty applies to the same business, the longest period governs, which for most VAT-registered hospitality businesses is the six year VAT period.

9. **Hand the daily arithmetic and the filing structure to Codex once the day's raw figures are in front of you.** Put the Z reading, the settlement report, the counted cash and any discrepancy notes for the period in one working folder and run, from that folder:

   ```
   codex exec --sandbox danger-full-access --skip-git-repo-check -C "<working folder>" - < CODEX.md
   ```

   Claude hands over the raw figures for each day and any discrepancy reasons already established. Codex returns the daily reconciliation table, the discrepancy log, the DGT record and the filing index. Codex never decides what caused a discrepancy and never closes a day's log entry with a guessed reason; an unexplained gap stays unexplained until the owner or manager records why.

10. **Know what electronic sales suppression is before you buy or accept a till setting that offers it, because the penalty regime is already live.** HMRC's own definition: "ESS is where a business uses a tool to either hide or reduce the value of individual transactions on its electronic sales records," where a tool is "a piece of software, computer code script or hardware." Mere possession carries "a fixed penalty" of up to £1,000, rising to the full £1,000 immediately on a repeat within five years, plus "daily penalties of up to £75 per day" until the tool is removed and HMRC is satisfied of it. A till reconciliation process that is actually followed every day is the practical defence, because a suppression tool exists precisely to defeat the comparison this skill builds.

## Then it checks

1. Every trading day in the period has exactly one Z reading, timestamped, with the name of who took it recorded.
2. Every day's till total is broken into cash, card and any other tender type separately, and the reconciliation compares each type individually rather than one combined figure.
3. Every card figure is matched against the terminal's own settlement report, and any gap between the two states a reason or is logged as unexplained.
4. Every cash count was performed independently of the till's cash figure before the two were compared, and the count is attributed to a named person.
5. No discrepancy log entry states a reason that was not actually established on the day; every reason is either a documented fact or the word unexplained.
6. The DGT record and the daily reconciliations for the period are filed in a structure that will still be intact and legible in six years.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never state a normal or expected daily variance, an average shrinkage figure, a typical till discrepancy percentage or any other benchmark for a single independent UK hospitality business. No published figure exists, and an owner who compares their own gap to a borrowed number will either dismiss a real problem as normal or chase noise as if it were one.
- Never adjust the till figure, the settlement figure or the cash count to make them agree. The reconciliation records the gap; it does not remove it.
- Never write a discrepancy reason that was not established from an actual document or a statement from the person involved. An assumed reason defeats the log's purpose.
- Never configure, accept or recommend any till or EPOS setting whose function is to hide or reduce the recorded value of a transaction. That is the statutory definition of an ESS tool, and mere possession is already a penalty, whether or not it is ever used.
- Never treat a reconciliation as a staff disciplinary process by itself. A repeated unexplained gap is a fact for the owner to act on; this skill records the fact and does not draw the conclusion about who is responsible.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own bank statements and till system, and for their accountant to check before it is relied on for VAT or tax purposes. It applies published HMRC and Companies Act record-keeping duties to the figures supplied. It is not accountancy advice and it is not a determination that any VAT or tax return is correct.

## Built from
- HM Revenue and Customs, "Retail schemes (VAT Notice 727)", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/retail-schemes-notice-727, read 23 September 2026: the daily gross takings definition and the duty to keep a DGT record under scheme conditions, in step 1 and step 7.
- HM Revenue and Customs, "Record keeping for VAT (VAT Notice 700/21)", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/record-keeping-for-vat-notice-70021, read 23 September 2026: the six year VAT record retention period and the express naming of till rolls as a daily takings record, in step 8.
- GOV.UK, "Self-employed: How long to keep your records", https://www.gov.uk/self-employed-records/how-long-to-keep-your-records, read 23 September 2026: the five year Self Assessment retention period measured from the 31 January deadline, in step 8.
- Companies Act 2006, section 388, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/388, read 23 September 2026: the three year accounting record retention period for a private company, in step 8.
- HM Revenue and Customs, "Electronic sales suppression: possession of tools (CC/FS68A)", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/compliance-checks-electronic-sales-suppression-possession-of-tools-ccfs68a/electronic-sales-suppression-possession-of-tools-ccfs68a, read 23 September 2026: the definition of an ESS tool and the possession penalty figures, in step 10.

# till-reconcile

## You are given
For each trading day in the period: the Z reading total and its breakdown by tender type (cash, card, other), the date and time it was taken and who took it. The card terminal's settlement or batch report for the same day. The cash count for the day, counted independently, with who counted it. Any discrepancy reason already established by the owner or manager for a day where the till, the settlement report and the cash count do not agree, or a statement that no reason has been established. The business's VAT retail scheme name where one applies, and any scheme-specific DGT adjustment the owner has stated applies, such as excluded deposits. The legal entity type (sole trader, partnership or limited company), which decides which retention period is longest. All judgement calls, including why a discrepancy occurred, are already made by the owner and supplied to you as finished facts or explicitly left as unexplained.

## Produce
Write into a `./till-reconcile-output/` folder:

1. `daily-reconciliation.csv` with these columns in this order: `date`, `z_reading_time`, `z_reading_taken_by`, `till_total_gbp`, `till_cash_gbp`, `till_card_gbp`, `till_other_gbp`, `settlement_card_gbp`, `counted_cash_gbp`, `counted_cash_by`, `card_variance_gbp`, `cash_variance_gbp`, `total_variance_gbp`, `variance_status`. One row per trading day supplied. `card_variance_gbp` is `settlement_card_gbp` minus `till_card_gbp`. `cash_variance_gbp` is `counted_cash_gbp` minus `till_cash_gbp`. `variance_status` is exactly `zero`, `explained` or `unexplained`, and is `explained` only where a matching row exists in `discrepancy-log.csv`.
2. `discrepancy-log.csv` with columns: `date`, `payment_type`, `variance_amount_gbp`, `reason_category`, `reason_detail_verbatim`, `recorded_by`, `recorded_date`. `payment_type` is exactly one of `cash`, `card`, `other`. `reason_category` is exactly one of `till error corrected at time`, `walkout`, `float miscount`, `refund processed outside till`, `settlement timing`, `unexplained`. Every row with `reason_category` of `unexplained` still gets a row; it is never omitted.
3. `dgt-record.csv` with columns: `date`, `till_total_gbp`, `scheme_adjustments_gbp`, `dgt_figure_gbp`, `adjustment_reason`. `dgt_figure_gbp` is `till_total_gbp` plus or minus `scheme_adjustments_gbp`, and `adjustment_reason` names the scheme rule supplied by the owner for each adjustment; a row with no adjustment states `none` in both fields.
4. `filing-index.md` listing, for the period covered, where each day's Z reading, settlement report and cash count record is filed, the retention period that applies given the legal entity type supplied, and the calendar date the earliest record in the period may be destroyed.
5. `gaps.md` a numbered list of: every day missing a Z reading, a settlement report or a cash count; every `unexplained` row in `discrepancy-log.csv`; every day where `variance_status` is neither `zero` nor matched to a discrepancy log entry; and any DGT adjustment stated without a named scheme rule.

## Rules
- Codex calculates variances, matches records and files an index. It never decides why a discrepancy occurred, never converts an `unexplained` variance into a guessed reason, and never chooses which VAT retail scheme applies or what its adjustments are.
- Never adjust a supplied figure to make the reconciliation balance. `till_total_gbp`, `settlement_card_gbp` and `counted_cash_gbp` are recorded exactly as supplied even where they conflict with each other; the variance columns show the conflict.
- Never state a normal, average or expected variance figure, in any file. No such figure exists for a single independent UK hospitality business.
- Never mark a `variance_status` as `explained` without a corresponding row in `discrepancy-log.csv` naming a `reason_category` other than a blank value.
- Use British English, GBP written as `GBP` or the pound sign, and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every name, time and reason is copied exactly as supplied.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own bank statements and till system, and for their accountant to check before it is relied on for VAT or tax purposes. It applies supplied figures and published retention duties to a daily record and is not a determination that any VAT or tax return is correct.

## Return
The absolute path of every file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of days in the period with `variance_status` of `zero`, `explained` and `unexplained` stated separately with no percentage calculated between them, the total card variance and total cash variance across the period in pounds, the retention period and earliest destruction date from `filing-index.md`, and the `gaps.md` item count.