How to stop cash gaps at your gym

Most of the time, it isn't theft. It's small things adding up:

• wrong change when the desk is busy;
• a payment taken but not written in the notebook;
• a discount given “for a friend”, with no trace;
• a refund handed over in cash;
• two people working from the same till.

As long as you don't know which, you suspect everyone. The method below is first of all about that: knowing.

If three people take cash into the same box, a gap belongs to nobody. Give each receptionist their own till for their shift, even if it's just an envelope, and record each payment under their name.

This isn't distrust: it's what protects honest receptionists. When Salma's till is right every evening, nobody doubts her any more.

At the end of each shift, three numbers, always in the same order:

• expected: the cash payments recorded since the last closing, minus refunds;
• counted: what is really in the till, without the float;
• gap: counted minus expected.

Example: 12 payments for 3 450 DH, 3 300 DH counted, 150 DH missing. Written down every day, a gap becomes information, not an argument.

Set a threshold, for example 20 DH. Below it, note it and move on. Above it, the person writes an explanation that same evening (“wrong change”, “refund to Hajar”) and you are told.

An explanation written the same day beats an inquiry a week later, when nobody remembers.

A payment recorded by mistake is not crossed out or deleted: it is cancelled, with a reason, and the cancellation stays visible. Same for a refund. A till whose lines can be erased proves nothing.

Two minutes are enough:

• yesterday's closings, and the gaps above the threshold with their explanation;
• yesterday's discounts and cancellations;
• the money collected, compared with the same weekday last week.

Do this every day for a month and the gaps shrink by themselves: everyone knows the till is looked at.