Cash drawer, cash-up and receipts on the Servatto Register
12 November 2026
If you take cash, the end of the day is where small mistakes show up: a float nobody counted, milk money that came out of the drawer and was never written down, a count that's $12 off and no one can say why. The Servatto Register has a cash drawer feature that keeps a record of each of those steps, so the count at night has something to be checked against.
Here's how it works, and which parts need the internet.
Morning: start the drawer with a counted float
Each trading day the till asks you to Start the cash drawer. You count the cash in the drawer, type the amount and tap Start with $X. That's your opening float, and the end-of-day figure starts from it. If a till isn't taking cash that day, tap Not today. You can also start it later from Cash in the left bar.
During the day: pay in, pay out, no sale
Cash that moves without a sale gets recorded too.
- Pay in and pay out. Go to Cash, then Pay in or Pay out, type the amount and pick what it's for: Change top-up, Float top-up, Supplies, Staff meal, or type your own. The till asks for a manager's PIN, then opens the drawer.
- No sale. If someone needs to open the drawer for change, the till records it against their name. It needs the drawer to have been started first.
Because each movement has an amount, a reason and a name, "where did $20 go?" is a question you can answer the next morning.
If the drawer doesn't open, the usual cause is the setup: the drawer plugs into the receipt printer, and the printer has to be marked as having one under Settings → Hardware. There's also a setting to open it on every cash sale.
Night: the close-out
Tap Cash, then End of day · cash up. Count the notes and coins (or type the total), add a note if you need to, and tap Close the drawer. The till shows what it expected, what you counted and the difference, and prints a close-out slip on the receipt printer.
There's no separate Z-report button on the till. The close-out is the cash-up. The figures also go to the Back Office, under Reports → Cash drawers, where an owner or manager can see each drawer's float, cash sales, pay ins and outs, expected, counted and difference, and click one to see every cash movement.
If a till is removed or paired again while its drawer is open, an owner or manager can close that drawer from the Back Office, with the count and a reason.
5c cash rounding
Australia doesn't use 1c and 2c coins, so cash totals are rounded to the nearest 5c: 1–2c down, 3–4c up. The Register does this on cash only. Card payments are charged to the exact cent. The rounding is kept apart from the sale. It doesn't count as sales, and it shows on the End of day report as its own line inside the cash takings, so the drawer still adds up.
Receipts, your ABN and tax invoices
In the Back Office, Settings → Receipts is where you set the header, footer, ABN, phone and website. Tick Print the ABN if you want it on the receipt. Servatto's help says the ABN is needed for a tax invoice. What your receipts and invoices have to show for your business is a question for your accountant, not for a till.
You can choose whether the till prints a receipt for every sale, asks each time, or never does.
SMS and email receipts on request
For a customer who doesn't want paper, Register can send an SMS or email receipt on request. When a sale is paid, the till asks Send a receipt? and offers Text (SMS) and Email. Type the customer's mobile number or email address and tap Send receipt. For an earlier sale, find it under Sales or Transactions and tap Text receipt or Email receipt.
An email receipt is the same receipt the till would print, laid out as an email from your café. A text receipt has the same lines as plain text, headed with your café's name and the order number. SMS receipts are available only from Register and go to Australian mobile numbers.
What needs the internet
- Cash sales keep working offline. The till saves them and sends them when it reconnects. (Our post on what still works when your internet drops covers the detail.)
- Closing out offline. If the till is offline when you close the drawer, it saves the close-out and sends it to the Back Office when it reconnects.
- Manager approval needs internet. Servatto checks the manager's PIN online every time, so a pay in or pay out that needs a manager waits until you're back online.
- SMS and email receipts need internet. They're sent from Servatto, not from the till.
A simple routine
- Count the float and start the drawer before the first sale.
- Pay ins and pay outs go through Cash, never by just taking the money.
- Close out at the end of the day and keep the slip.
- Check Reports → Cash drawers next morning. A drawer still showing as open means it hasn't been closed, or its close-out hasn't reached Servatto yet.
The Register has no monthly fee, so setting this up costs nothing.
Setup help is at [email protected].
Servatto publishes this post and sells the software described in it.