How to Manage Cash in Shopify POS: Open, Count, Close

When the drawer and the screen disagree at close, the register session is where you find out why, as long as cash tracking was set up before the first shift.

This guide covers what each plan includes and the settings to make before the first shift, then the cashier's day in order: opening, adjusting, counting, closing and the reports your bookkeeper needs. Closing up right now? Jump to closing the register.

How Does Cash Tracking Work in Shopify POS?

A register session is Shopify's record of one stretch of cash handling, usually a shift or a business day. The Help Center defines it like this:

Cash payments are turned on by default in Shopify POS. When a customer pays in cash, Shopify calculates the change and tracks the amount of cash in the drawer, per its cash payments page, so the expected balance builds up during the session without anyone keeping a tally.

Shopify rebuilt cash management across the POS app and the Point of Sale channel in the admin on April 2, 2026, adding native reason codes and a register sessions tab. The steps below follow that version.

Do You Need POS Pro for Cash Management?

Cash handling has two gates, and they fail in different ways. The first decides whether the drawer is tracked at all; the second decides what the back office can see and who on the floor may do what. Find your task in the table, then read the gate it falls under.

Gate One: Cash Tracking on Every Paid Plan

Shopify's POS plan comparison marks Cash tracking as included with all paid plans, and says the default in-person selling features of a paid plan can be used at no extra cost. That covers the whole cashier routine in this guide: opening a session with a float, recording cash in and out, counting, closing and printing.

The place to check this gate is the register, not the plan: each device has its own setting, covered in turning on cash counting.

Gate Two: The Cash Tracking Report and POS Roles Need POS Pro

Shopify's Cash tracking report page carries a plan requirement: the report is available only for locations on the POS Pro subscription. The same requirement sits on POS analytics, which holds the Daily Sales report, and on POS roles, which hold every cash permission.

Device trouble is the other place POS Pro matters. If you reset or reinstall the POS app, register sessions might not display on the device; if the location has POS Pro, you can access all sessions from the Shopify admin.

POS Pro costs $89 USD per location per month on monthly billing, or $67 USD per location per month on a 12-month term. The 12-month term is a choice on the Retail, Basic, Grow and Advanced plans; Shopify Plus bills on a 30-day cycle and includes the first 20 POS Pro locations. Whether the reporting is worth that for your stores is the subject of our POS Pro guide.

Shopify sells POS Pro per location, and the account owner chooses the subscription for each one. We checked where the admin lists it: see what our development store showed.

Set Up Cash Tracking Before the First Shift

Most of the setup is a one-time job, split between the POS app on each device and the Point of Sale channel in your admin. Do it in this order, then use the checklist at the end of the section to confirm nothing was missed.

Turn On Cash Counting on Every Register

In the Shopify POS app on each device:

1. Tap the Register icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Turn on Require cash counting at session start and end.

The setting lives on the device, so repeat it on every register. You can restrict access to the register settings by activating the Limited permissions option in the Staff settings.

Require a Reason for Every Cash Movement

Reason codes answer the question every discrepancy raises: why did cash enter or leave the drawer outside a sale? Shopify's April 2026 changelog describes them as a way to require a reason code for any non-order cash activity, such as opening the drawer or making adjustments. The Help Center sets them up in your admin:

1. Go to Point of Sale › Settings.
2. Open Payments, then Cash management.
3. Under Reason codes, require reasons for cash additions, removals and drawer openings.
4. To add a code of your own, click Add reason code.

If Cash management sits somewhere else in your settings, see what our development store showed.

Reason codes display when you view an open or closed register session in the POS app, and when you select View activity for a cash tracking session in the Shopify admin.

Decide Who Can Count, Adjust and Close

Cash permissions live in POS roles, and POS roles are available only for locations on the POS Pro subscription. At those locations, these permissions decide who can count, adjust and close:

Two more permissions cover the admin side: Access cash tracking sessions in the POS channel, and End payment tracking sessions from the admin, which lets staff remotely end open sessions from any POS Pro location.

Shopify's Cash tracking report page names the access permissions differently, as View payment register session history and View payment register sessions in the POS channel; in a role, look for the payment tracking names. Where our admin grouped these permissions: see what our development store showed.

What staff can do at a location without POS Pro is answered in our FAQ on who can manage Shopify POS staff.

Connect the Drawer and Choose When It Opens

The drawer connects to your device through the receipt printer and must be on the same wireless network, per Shopify's cash drawer page. Cabling, the drawer test and the models Shopify lists are covered step by step in our guide to connecting a cash drawer to a Shopify POS receipt printer.

You can have Shopify POS open the drawer automatically after each cash transaction, or open it manually at any time. The automatic option is Drawer auto-open, under Settings › Payments › Payment Options in the POS app. Shopify's April 2026 changelog adds an open drawer setting that controls whether a device opens the drawer automatically after an order, useful for staff using mobile devices on the sales floor.

How Do You Open a Register Session With a Float?

You can start a register session in two ways: manually, entering a starting amount, or automatically, when POS opens one for you. Only a manual open puts a counted float on record. In the POS app:

1. Tap the Register icon.
2. Tap Open session.
3. Enter the Current amount in drawer, or tap Count cash and enter the Bills and Coins you counted.
4. Add a note if you want one, then open the session.

The counting tool supports only nine currencies: AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, NZD, PLN, SGD and USD. In any other currency, enter the total in Current amount in drawer instead; cash tracking itself works the same.

If a session has ended and nobody opens another before the next order, POS opens a new session automatically, and the calculated cash balance at the end of the previous session becomes its starting amount. For your store's first session that starting amount is 0, so open the first one by hand.

A session you open manually stays open until you manually close it. Agree who closes each register before the shift starts.

Managing Cash During the Day

Between the opening float and the closing count, three things change or check the drawer outside a sale. Recording each one keeps the difference at the closing count traceable.

Add or Remove Cash During a Shift

Shopify names three situations for an adjustment:

• Staff can't make the right change with the cash in the drawer.
• The cash in the drawer exceeds your preferred limit.
• Cash is removed from the drawer temporarily.

To record one in the POS app:

1. Tap the Register icon, then Open session.
2. Tap Add cash or Remove cash.
3. Enter the amount.
4. If reason codes are active, select the reason for adding or removing cash.
5. Tap Save.

Adjustments display in the cash activity section of the session's details page, which is where you trace them at close.

Count the Drawer Mid-Shift

Counting used to be tied to the two ends of a session. Shopify's changelog put it this way when the change shipped:

Now staff tap the Register icon and select Count cash during an active shift. Shopify suggests it for a till check on a busy day, a handover to a new staff member mid-shift, or reconciling after a large cash deposit or removal. The count is automatically logged to the register session, so a gap shows up before the closing count.

The Help Center pages on cash register management, register sessions in the POS app and in the admin, cash tracking reports and cash payments that we read on November 5, 2026 describe Count cash only inside opening a session, so these steps rest on the changelog alone.

Open the Drawer Without a Sale

Shopify lists three ways to open the drawer manually:

• The Register icon, then Open drawer, available only while a session is open.
• The Open drawer tile.
• The drawer's physical keys.

If reason codes are active, the Open drawer dialog asks why; when no code fits, staff select Other and add a note. A staff member without the Open drawer permission can't open it from the cart actions, but the drawer still opens automatically after a cash sale.

How Do You Close the Register at the End of the Day?

A register session must be closed at regular intervals, such as when your store opens and closes, or when staff start and end their shift. If a session stays open too long, the Expected cash and Discrepancies reports might become inaccurate.

Count, Reconcile and Close the Session

Closing is final, so count carefully:

1. Tap the Register icon.
2. Tap Close session.
3. Enter the amount of cash in the drawer.
4. Add a note, for example to explain a difference.
5. Enter the float you want to leave in the drawer for the next session.
6. Remove the excess cash from the drawer.
7. Review the totals on the Session complete screen: the cash in the drawer and the expected balance should be the same.

For a paper record, tap Print: it prints the cash details for the session and a summary of all payment types. Closed sessions stay under Session history in the register, with start and end times, net payments for every payment type, and the cash activity and adjustments.

Read the Difference Between Expected and Counted

On POS Pro locations, Shopify's Cash tracking report shows two kinds of discrepancy. The closing one is the figure most stores watch:

An Opening discrepancy compares the amount reported at the end of the last session with the amount counted at the beginning of this one, so it shows a change between one session closing and the next opening.

To find a cause, read the session's cash activity, where additions, removals and drawer openings are listed, with reasons if reason codes are active, or the Session activity report in the admin. The POS activity log won't help here: Shopify lists cash drawer operations among the events it doesn't capture.

Close a Session From the Admin

When you can't close a register session on the POS device, you can close it from the Point of Sale sales channel in your Shopify admin. Staff need the End payment tracking sessions from the admin permission, which covers POS Pro locations.

1. In the Point of Sale channel, open the register sessions list and select the open session.
2. Click Close session.
3. Enter the Cash counted. If you can't count the drawer, leave the default amount.
4. If the cash counted discrepancy is accurate, confirm it.
5. Under Confirm cash in drawer, select the cash left in the drawer.
6. Click Close session.

The session's activity history then records the remote closing and the changes you made to the amount in the drawer. If a transaction is in progress when you close the session, a new session opens automatically when the next transaction completes. You can't open a session from the admin's register sessions page; you open sessions in Shopify POS.

End-of-Day Reports and Exports for Your Bookkeeper

Register sessions aren't for long-term reporting: for longer periods, Shopify points you to the Finance and Order reports. What session reports give a bookkeeper is the daily trail behind the cash figure.

Which Report Shows What

Daily Sales sits in the POS app's Analytics screen, and staff roles decide who can open it.

For automation, Shopify Flow's Get cash tracking session data action retrieves cash tracking session information from POS Pro locations.

On the Help Center's path, the Cash tracking report opens from Sales channels › Point of Sale › Locations, then a location and Cash tracking summary › View details; for all locations at once, open Cash tracking. If your channel menu has no Locations item, see what our development store showed.

Export Sessions to CSV

Shopify's Help Center puts the session list at Point of Sale › Register; its April 2026 changelog calls the same screen the Register sessions tab. Our admin used the Register sessions name: see what our development store showed. To export for your bookkeeper:

1. Open the register sessions list and filter by location and dates.
2. Click Export.
3. Choose Export cash discrepancy summary, Export all sessions or Export selected sessions.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Point of Sale
2. Register sessions

Zoom

If a session is still open, you can export only its Session activity report. The Cash tracking report offers Export summary, Export all sessions, Export selected sessions and Print.

Several Registers, Shift Changes and Locations

With more than one register, the rule that shapes everything is per device:

Devices store register sessions when they're created, and sessions created on one device aren't visible on other devices.

At a shift change, close the session so each person's cash is counted on its own, or, where the drawer stays in use, run a mid-session Count cash at the handover, one of the uses Shopify's changelog names. A register session records cash, not hours worked; whether POS tracks staff time is answered in our FAQ on whether Shopify POS has a time clock.

Shopify's cash drawer page states that cash drawers and POS devices have a one-to-one connection. Its April 2026 developer changelog adds a Cash Drawer resource to the Admin GraphQL API: a cash drawer represents a physical cash storage unit at a location, and multiple devices can connect to a single drawer. Shopify's merchant changelog adds that payment reporting stays device-level, while cash reporting can span contributing devices.

That is a capability for apps and POS UI extensions, not a setting in the POS app, so plan on one drawer per register unless an app you use supports sharing.

Where Cash Rules Change: Quick Sale, Offline and Country Rules

Everything above assumes the Shopify POS app at a location with no special cash rules. These are the exceptions Shopify documents:

Quick Sale in the Shopify app is built for simple, fast transactions and lacks cash tracking, which Shopify keeps for selling with Shopify POS. What it gained on January 27, 2026 is a change due calculator on iOS and Android: enter the cash the customer hands over, and the change due shows on the order summary.

Outside France and Sweden, whether a register can keep taking cash without a connection depends on the app's offline mode, covered in our POS app guide's offline section. The country rows in the table come from Shopify's country requirements page.

Fiscal register rules reach beyond cash in some countries. Which countries Shopify documents, and whether POS meets their rules, is answered in our FAQ on whether Shopify POS meets fiscal cash register rules.

Where Shopify POS rounds cash payments, the rounding adjustments display on the POS Pro Cash tracking page in the Point of Sale channel, where the Cash payments section shows Gross payments, Refunds and Net payments as rounded figures; rounding works offline on Shopify POS version 11.11 or higher. Where else rounding shows is answered in our FAQ on how cash rounding shows on receipts, reports and refunds.

Our own test· November 10, 2026

What Our Development Store Showed

Key takeaway

On November 10, 2026 we opened the cash screens of a Shopify development store's admin, with three locations, all on POS Pro, and saved nothing. The main text follows Shopify's Help Center; this is where our admin differed from it, and what it showed beside it:

Help Center paths against our development store

What	Shopify Help Center	Our development store, November 10, 2026
Where reason codes are set	Point of Sale › Settings › Payments › Cash management › Reason codes, with Add reason code	A Cash management row in the Register section of Point of Sale settings, opening a page with one Reason codes switch: "Require reasons for cash additions, removals, and drawer openings. Applies to all locations". With the switch off, no Add reason code button showed; we didn't turn it on
The session list	Point of Sale › Register, filtered by location and dates	A Register sessions menu item (beside Devices and Settings): Today and All locations filters, Sessions opened, Sessions closed, Cash at open and Cash activity tiles, All, Open and Closed tabs, and an Export button; we didn't open its menu, and the page showed No sessions found for Today
The Cash tracking report	Sales channels › Point of Sale › Locations › a location › Cash tracking summary › View details	The channel's menu listed Devices, Register sessions and Settings, with no Locations item; the screen closest to a cross-location view was Register sessions with the All locations filter
Cash permissions in a role	A Register section of the POS permissions page lists six of them one by one, Open drawer included; Cash out gift cards sits under Checkout	One Register group of a Point of Sale role (0/7): Manage payment tracking with four permissions nested under it, then Open drawer and Cash out gift cards
Which locations are on POS Pro	The account owner chooses the subscription for each location	Settings › Locations, in a POS Subscription column

One look at a Shopify development store admin, November 10, 2026; Shopify Help Center pages on register sessions in the admin, cash tracking reports and POS role permissions, read November 5, 2026.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Point of Sale
2. Settings
3. Cash management

Zoom

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Users
3. Roles

Zoom

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Locations

Zoom

We tested nothing in the POS app on a device, so opening, counting, adjusting and closing a session, the Export menu and the reason-code switch itself are not covered here.

The Bottom Line

Cash in Shopify POS is only as accurate as the sessions around it. The software does the arithmetic; the habits decide whether the expected balance means anything.

Frequently Asked Questions