Despite the continued increase of food trucks accepting credit cards, many food trucks still take in hundreds of dollars of cash each day. Today we’ll discuss cash control for you and your food truck staff members.

Cash Control In Your Food Truck

To accept cash on your truck you also need to keep additional cash on board, specifically for for making change. Without a good cash control system in place, food truck vendors often find themselves wondering if all of this cash is finding its way to their bank account and eventually to their mobile food business’ bottom-line.

While, there are many best practices for cash control, one often overlooked practice is to keep a separate cash on hand account with a set amount and never mix it with cash receipts.

The cash on hand account typically consists of bills and change needed for the cash drawer, a backup change fund and optionally a separate petty cash fund. These funds must be kept separate from daily sales receipts and must be large enough for conducting business in between shifts or having to send an employee to make a bank run for additional change.

Whoever maintains the cash control in your food truck operation should be issued a fixed amount for their cash drawers prior to their shift. As additional change is needed the owner or manager simply exchanges larger bills from the cash drawer for change from the change fund, leaving the total amount of cash in the drawer and the change funds unchanged.

At the end of their shift the cashier separates the beginning cash drawer from the rest of the cash and the manager returns it to the safe for use on another shift. The cash receipts are then matched against the register report and added to the daily bank deposit.

RELATED: 4 Simple Steps To Identify Counterfeit Cash

The Bottom Line

Dealing with cash has it’s own special issues. As a food truck owner you need to make sure you are handling cash control on your truck so you don’t hurt your bottom line.

Do you have any additional cash control tips you’d like to share with our readers? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section, our food truck forum or social media. Twitter | Facebook