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End-of-day cash and stock close for van reps: a checklist

For operations and finance managers who run van reps. It sets out a close short enough to do every evening, which catches stock and cash differences while they are still small enough to explain.

Van sales and routes4 min read

The short answer

A van rep’s end-of-day close starts once the last visit is checked out and every document has synced. Count the van’s stock blind, item by item, before the cash, then count cash apart from card and transfer takings. Explain each difference while the rep still remembers the day, have the office approve the close, post anything unexplained to cash over and short, and bank the cash by the next morning.

Key takeaways

  • Close every evening, so a difference belongs to one day and usually to one or two visits the rep remembers.
  • A sale still waiting on a phone with no signal is the commonest cause of a false shortage.
  • Expected cash is cash invoices plus cash collected on earlier invoices, plus any change float.
  • Never let a rep edit an invoice to make the cash agree; record the difference and explain it.
  • Review differences by rep each week and act on patterns, such as a rep short three evenings out of five.

Close every day, not every week

A van rep handles stock and cash all day, away from the office. If the count waits until the end of the week, a shortage could have happened on any of six days and at any of a hundred visits, and nobody can say where. Counted every evening, a difference belongs to one day, and usually to one or two visits the rep still remembers.

A daily close also means the next day starts from figures both sides have agreed, so yesterday’s problem is not carried into today’s load.

TipMake the close part of the working day, done before the rep goes home, not something squeezed into the next morning.

Finish the route first

The close starts when the last visit ends. Every invoice, payment and return of the day must be saved and sent, so the expected figures are complete. A sale still waiting on a phone with no signal is the commonest cause of a false shortage.

  1. Check out of the last customer
  2. Make sure every document has synced
  3. Settle any invoice the customer disputed on the spot
  4. Agree what stays on the van overnight and what is unloaded
  5. Then start the count

Count the stock before the cash

Count the van first. Stock and cash are two sides of the same day: an item missing from the van was either sold, given away or lost. If the stock count comes first, a cash shortage can often be explained by a sale the stock shows and the cash does not.

The rep should count without seeing what the system expects. A blind count is a real count; a count against a figure on screen tends to find exactly that figure.

TipHave the rep count item by item in the same order every evening, shelf by shelf, so nothing is counted twice or missed.

Count cash and non-cash separately

Cash in hand should equal cash invoices plus cash collected on earlier invoices, plus any change float. Card and transfer takings do not sit in the rep’s pocket, so compare them on their own against the terminal slips and transfer references. Mixing the two hides a cash shortage behind a card overpayment.

Cheques are cash in transit: list each one with its number, bank and date, and hand them in with the cash.

Find the cause before you post the difference

A difference is a question, not a verdict. Most come from a handful of everyday mistakes, and the rep, who still remembers the day, is the best person to find them that same evening.

  • A sale saved on the phone but not yet synced
  • Change given wrongly at a busy shop
  • A payment recorded against the wrong customer
  • A return taken back but not recorded
  • A free item given without a document
  • A miscount at the morning load

TipNever let a rep edit an invoice to make the cash agree; record the difference and explain it.

Approve, post and hand over

Someone in the office, not the rep, approves the close. Approval moves the day’s cash from the rep to your cash or bank accounts, and any difference that cannot be explained posts to a cash over and short account, so the books show it rather than hide it.

Bank the cash by the next morning at the latest. No rep should be holding cash from an earlier day, and a supervisor should be able to see at a glance who is.

Act on patterns, not single days

A single small shortage is normal. A rep who is short three evenings out of five, or a van that is always two cartons down on the same item, is a pattern worth a conversation. Agree in writing what happens to repeated shortages before the first one, so the rule is not invented in anger.

  • Review differences by rep every week
  • Look for the same item short again and again
  • Recount the van with the rep when a pattern appears
  • Write down the shortage rule and share it with every rep

TipRotate who checks the close in the office, so no checker and rep grow too comfortable with each other.

Checklist: The evening close, every rep, every day

  • Check out of the last visit
  • Confirm every document has synced
  • Count the van’s stock item by item, blind
  • Count cash apart from card and transfer
  • List each cheque with number, bank and date
  • Explain every difference before posting it
  • Have the office approve the close, never the rep
  • Post unexplained differences to over and short
  • Bank the cash by the next morning

In Axon Suite

How Axon Suite handles it

In Axon Suite the rep counts the van’s stock and then the cash in hand, blind by default, with cash and non-cash compared separately against what the rep is expected to hold. A user with approval rights on field reconciliations approves the close, the cash moves to your main accounts, and any difference posts to the over and short account set in your field settings. Closes waiting for approval, van counts that do not match and cash still held from an earlier day appear on the supervisor dashboard.

Feature

End-of-day cash and stock close

At the end of the day the rep counts the van’s stock and then the cash in hand. By default the rep counts blind, without seeing what the system expects. The office approves the close, and any difference posts to your over and short account.

Open: End-of-day cash and stock close
Feature

Loading and unloading the van

Every van is a stock location of its own under a parent warehouse. The rep asks for a load or an unload from the app, and it is recorded as a transfer between the two.

Open: Loading and unloading the van
Feature

The supervisor’s field dashboard

The field dashboard shows the day’s visits, sales and collections for every rep, a list of what needs you, the customers nobody has visited for two or four weeks, and a map of where each rep last reported.

Open: The supervisor’s field dashboard
Feature

Selling from the van with no signal

Check-ins, orders, invoices, payments and returns are saved on the phone when there is no signal, then sent once it returns. Each one keeps the day of the sale and is sent only once, however often it has to retry.

Open: Selling from the van with no signal

Before you go

Questions owners ask

How long should the close take?

As long as an honest count of the van and the cash, and no longer. If it regularly runs much past that, the van carries too many items or the day’s documents are not synced before the count.

Should the rep see the expected figures?

Not while counting. A blind count finds what is really there; showing the expected figure invites the rep to find it. In Axon Suite the count is blind unless you turn the setting off.

Can the close be done without signal?

Every document of the day has to reach the office first, so the close needs a connection. In Axon Suite the end-of-day close is online only, and it is refused while a visit is still open.

Glossary

Terms in this guide

Open the glossary

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