Manager approval requires a manager's sign-off, badge code plus a separate PIN, before certain cash-sensitive till actions go through: cash drops and top-ups, expenses, discounts above a configured threshold, and loyalty point redemptions. Because a cashier can never approve their own exception, and a manager's real account password is never exposed at the till, this closes off some of the most common ways cashier fraud happens.
Where cashier fraud actually happens
Most till fraud isn't a dramatic theft. It's a small, repeated abuse of the exceptions every till needs to allow. A cashier gives themselves or a friend an oversized discount. A "cash drop" to the safe doesn't quite match what actually went in. An expense gets recorded and the cash quietly leaves the drawer. A loyalty redemption gets applied to a transaction that never happened. Individually these look like rounding errors; over weeks and months, they add up to a real loss: and because each action was performed by the same person who'd also have to notice it, there's no natural check built into the process.
How manager approval closes the gap
The fix isn't removing these exceptions: discounts, cash drops, and expenses are normal parts of running a till. The fix is making sure the person performing the action isn't also the person approving it. That's what manager approval does: cash drops/top-ups, expenses, discounts above a configured cap, and loyalty point redemptions can be gated behind a manager's sign-off before they go through.
Badge code plus PIN: not a password
The approval flow itself is deliberately two-part. A manager scans or enters their badge code, which identifies who is approving. Then they enter their own separate PIN, not their account login password, to confirm. This matters for two reasons: a cashier can't approve their own exception because the badge-and-PIN combination has to belong to someone else, and a manager's real password is never exposed at the till, where it could otherwise be watched or guessed by anyone nearby.
What's gated by default, and what you can adjust
| Action | Requires manager approval? |
|---|---|
| Cash drop or top-up | Yes, by default |
| Expense recorded at the till | Yes, by default |
| Discount above your configured threshold | Yes: below the threshold, no approval needed |
| Loyalty point redemption | Yes, by default |
Manager approval is on by default for cash-sensitive actions, but a shop can configure the discount percentage threshold below which no approval is needed. This means small, routine discounts, a few percent off for a regular customer, don't require pulling a manager over every single time, while anything larger still needs a genuine sign-off.
Why this matters more as a shop grows
A one-person till doesn't need this: the owner is the cashier. The moment a shop hires its first cashier, or opens a second branch, the owner is no longer present for every transaction, and every cash-sensitive action becomes an act of trust with no verification behind it. Manager approval puts a structural check in place regardless of whether the owner happens to be watching, which matters even more for a business running Supermarket Mode with several cashiers working simultaneously on shared inventory, or a business with multiple branches where the owner genuinely can't be everywhere.
Frequently asked questions
Close the gap between trust and verification
Badge-and-PIN manager approval on cash drops, expenses, discounts, and loyalty redemptions: try WebpinnPOS free.
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