Opening and closing the cash box
The cash box is your work shift: with it closed you cannot disburse or collect. How to open it, what you declare and how to close it.
The cash box is your work shift. You open it when the day starts, every peso in and out gets recorded during the day, and you close it by counting the cash (the count, or arqueo).
While the cash box is closed, Prestafolio will not let you move money: no disbursing a loan, no collecting an installment, no reversing a payment. That is on purpose: every peso in or out is tied to a specific shift and to the person who recorded it.
There is one open cash box per business, not one per collector. Everyone collecting that day records their movements in the same session. See Cash by collector.
Opening the cash box
- Go to Cash in the side menu.
- Press Open cash box.
- Enter the opening balance (RD$): the cash you physically have in the drawer when you start. It can be 0 if you start with no cash.
- Optionally add a note (for example, "Juan's shift starts").
- Confirm. The cash box is now Open and you can collect and disburse.
What the opening balance really is: it is your declaration of how much cash is in the drawer, and it is used for the closing count. It does not add or subtract anything from your accounting balance: it is not a deposit or income, it is a count.
Closing the cash box (the count)
- In Cash, press Close cash box.
- Prestafolio shows you the expected cash computed by the system.
- Count the physical money and enter the counted cash (RD$). As you type, you see the difference live.
- Add a note if something needs explaining (a shortfall, a fake bill, an advance).
- Confirm. You get the count completed screen with expected, counted and difference.
The details of the calculation and what to do when it does not balance are in Counts and movements.
On closing, those three numbers are stored permanently in the cash history. A closed session accepts no further movements.
What requires an open cash box
Operation | Needs an open cash box? |
|---|---|
Creating a loan (disbursement) | Yes |
Changing a loan's amount | Yes |
Deleting a loan (refund) | Yes |
Renewing a loan | Yes |
Recording a payment or a bulk payment | Yes |
Reversing a payment | Yes |
Collecting a recurring service charge | Yes |
Reversing a service collection | Yes |
Viewing clients, loans, reports, history | No |
Creating or editing a client | No |
Creating or editing a service contract | No |
Note one important thing: reversing also requires an open cash box. Giving money back is moving money.
Errors you may see, in plain language
Message | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
The cash box is closed. Open it to record movements. | You tried to collect or disburse with no open shift. This is the warning shown on the collection screens, with a direct button to Cash. | Open the cash box and retry. |
You already have an open cash box | Someone in the business already opened the shift (or left yesterday's open). | Close it before opening a new one; only one can exist at a time. |
There is no open cash box to close | You pressed close and there is no live shift (perhaps another user closed it first). | Refresh the page: you will see the cash box as closed. |
Set up your company's accounting before opening a session | Your business does not have its Cash (1101) account yet. | Finish the initial setup (First steps); that account is created automatically with the accounting. |
The cash box does not have enough balance to disburse this loan | The disbursement would leave the business's cash negative. This is not the opening balance you declared, it is the real balance of your cash account. | Record pending collections or reduce the loan amount. |
Edge cases worth knowing
- You left yesterday's cash box open. Nothing breaks: today's movements are added to the same shift. But the count will cover both days at once. Recommendation: close at the end of each day.
- You closed the cash box while a collector is still out. They will not be able to record collections: they get the closed-cash warning. If you work with collectors, keep the shift open until everyone finishes their route.
- Two people close at the same time. Only one wins; the other sees "There is no open cash box to close". The count is never duplicated.
- A collection lands exactly while you close. The system serializes both: either the collection goes through and is included in the count, or the close wins and the collection is rejected as closed cash. No money is ever lost in between.
Who can open and close
Opening and closing are owner actions. The account owner always can; an agent only if you grant them the Open cash session and Close cash session permissions. See Cash permissions.