The duties of a cashier may vary from store to store. The term cashier is very broad and can encompass those who operate registers at retail or grocery stores, to those who occasionally handle money as part of a business. This means duties of a cashier will range, but there are some potential expected responsibilities including ringing up sales, taking returns, issuing receipts, counting out change, and running registers or any other equipment needed to process incoming payments.
A number of cashier jobs involve ringing up sales. In many grocery and retail stores this could mean using a handheld or counter scanner to scan each item so its price is accurately reflected. Sometimes items aren’t immediately available for scanning, such as food in a fast food restaurant. The duties of the a cashier might then involve hitting buttons that signify the type of food purchased, this is the case in many fast food establishments, or simply putting in the price of the items that are being purchased. In lots of mom and pop retail establishments this method may be used instead of any form of scanning method.
People may also need to take returns, which could mean ringing up a sale in a backward manner so that the cash drawer will open to give out money back. Alternately, returns don’t always result in money back, and the duties of a cashier could include filling out receipts for store credit or making exchanges. Not all cashiers are permitted to do returns, and this responsibility may need to be given to supervisory staff or management.
Counting out change accurately is one of the very important duties of a cashier. Some registers assess sale and tell people exactly what to give back in change. Others don’t do this and people must be able to appropriately calculate change on the spot and make certain this exact amount is given. It is very easy to over or undercount, which can make it look like the cashier is not accurate or is taking money from the register. Since people want to avoid this appearance, they need to get skilled at simple math and how to count out change.
With change, cashiers will also need to issue receipts for purchases. Many people depend on getting these so they can keep track of expenses. Usually, giving a receipt is just a matter of remembering to do so, but sometimes receipts won’t print and a cashier could have to replace receipt paper or take other steps.
Another of the duties of a cashier is to know how to operate all equipment that takes money and know the protocol for accepting different forms of payment. This could mean cashiers have to understand how to process an ATM or charge purchase. Learning how and what kinds of checks to accept is another responsibility.
To these common duties of a cashier there may be added a number of additional elements. Some cashiers are responsible for bookkeeping and need to make sure that all purchases add accurately to totals in the cash drawer at the end of each day or each shift. A few cashiers even go to the bank and make deposits of store money after their shifts.
