5 Warning Signs Your Staff May Be Skimming the Register

Introduction: Trust But Verify "I trust my team completely." It's a phrase that restaurant and retail owners say all the time. And in most cases, that trust is well-placed. The majority of employees are honest, hardworking people who take pride in their work. But here's the uncomfortable reality: internal theft happens more often than most business owners realize. And it frequently comes from the people you'd least expect. The employee who's been with you for years. The manager you promoted. The team member who always stays late to help close. The good news is that cash skimming almost always leaves patterns behind. When you know what to look for, you can catch potential issues early—before they become major problems. In this article, we'll explore five warning signs that may indicate someone on your team is skimming from the register, and how modern analytics can help you spot these patterns. Warning Sign #1: Unusually LOW Cash Transaction Percentages Every business has a natural mix of cash and card payments. This ratio tends to be fairly consistent across employees who work similar shifts and serve similar customers. When one employee consistently shows a LOWER percentage of cash transactions than their peers, it warrants a closer look. This doesn't automatically mean they're stealing—there could be legitimate explanations. But it's a pattern worth investigating. Why This Matters Here's the key insight that many business owners miss: when an employee skims cash, they pocket the money WITHOUT entering the transaction into the POS system. This means those sales simply don't appear in your data. The result? Their recorded cash percentage looks LOWER than their peers who are honestly recording every transaction. Think about it this way: if an employee processes 100 transactions and skims 10 cash sales, only 90 transactions show up in your system. If 30 of those recorded transactions were cash, their recorded cash percentage is 33%—but their actual cash percentage (including the skimmed transactions) would have been 40%. The missing transactions make their numbers look artificially low. What to Look For One employee's cash percentage is significantly LOWER than the team average The deviation is consistent over time, not just an occasional dip The pattern exists even when controlling for shift time and location Lower-than-expected transaction counts during cash-heavy periods Modern POS analytics can automatically flag these deviations, comparing each employee's cash handling to their peers and highlighting outliers that deserve attention. Warning Sign #2: Frequent Voids and No-Sales Every register has a void function and a no-sale button. These are legitimate features that employees need for real situations—correcting mistakes, making change, and so on. But these same features can be exploited. An employee might ring up a cash sale, pocket the money, and then void the transaction. Or they might hit the no-sale button repeatedly throughout the day to access the cash drawer without recording a transaction. Red Flags to Watch One employee has significantly more voids than peers with similar transaction volumes Voids happen disproportionately on cash transactions (not cards) No-sale openings occur frequently, especially during busy periods Voids happen right after or near the end of a shift The Data Approach Tracking void and no-sale patterns over time reveals what's normal for your business. When someone's numbers deviate significantly from that baseline, it creates an opportunity for a conversation—before the behavior escalates. Warning Sign #3: Short Register Counts That "Even Out" Every business expects occasional discrepancies in the register count. A dollar or two off here and there is normal—humans make mistakes, and sometimes customers receive the wrong change. What's not normal is a pattern of small, consistent shortages that somehow balance out over time. This can indicate a sophisticated skimming operation where the employee takes a little bit each shift, then occasionally leaves the drawer slightly over to avoid suspicion. Patterns to Investigate Repeated small shortages ($5-$20) on the same employee's shifts Shortages that seem to "correct" themselves with occasional overages Register counts that are exactly right during manager-supervised closes Discrepancies that happen only during certain shifts or days Why Small Amounts Matter Smart thieves know that small amounts attract less attention. Taking $10 per shift doesn't raise alarms the way a missing $100 would. But over time, those small amounts compound into significant losses. An employee taking $10 per day, working five days a week, costs a business $2,600 per year. If they work six days a week, that climbs to over $3,100. Warning Sign #4: Customer Complaints About Missing Receipts When customers mention that they didn't receive a receipt, or that the receipt they received doesn't match what they remember ordering, it's worth paying attention. Thi