Your cash drawer is the nerve center of daily cash handling. TORO can manage the whole lifecycle — opening counts, closing counts, cash drops, over/short tracking — or it can step back entirely and let you handle the drawer yourself. This article covers both scenarios and everything in between.
Does TORO Need to Manage Your Drawer? #
That depends on your setup. Most stores want TORO managing the drawer because it gives you accountability: every dollar in and out gets tracked, discrepancies get flagged, and your daily reports tell you exactly where the cash went.
But some stores use a separate cash management system, or their drawer is tied to another device, or they simply prefer to handle cash their own way. If that’s you, turn off TORO’s drawer management and the system won’t prompt you to open or close the drawer at all.
Turning Drawer Management On or Off #
- From the main screen, tap Dashboard
- Go to Setup > Cash Drawer
- Check or uncheck “Manage Cash Drawer”
- Click Save
When enabled (checked): Employees must count cash at the start and end of each day. TORO tracks all cash movement — sales, refunds, drops, inserts — and calculates expected vs. actual at closing. The physical drawer pops open automatically on cash transactions.
When disabled (unchecked): No opening or closing prompts. No cash counting screens. No drawer-related reports. TORO processes sales normally but doesn’t track what’s physically in the drawer. You also won’t get the “drawer not closed from previous day” warning when logging in.
Opening the Drawer #
When drawer management is on, TORO prompts the first employee who logs in each day to open the drawer. You’ll count your starting cash by denomination — bills, coins, and rolled coins. This establishes the baseline for the day.
If you skip the prompt, TORO will remind you before your first sale. You can also manually open the drawer anytime from Drawer Functions > Open Drawer.
See Opening Up for the Day for the full walkthrough.
Closing the Drawer #
At the end of the day, go to Drawer Functions > Close Drawer. TORO walks you through counting everything in the drawer. It then compares your count against what it expected based on the day’s transactions and shows you the difference — your over/short amount.
See Closing Out at the End of the Day for the full walkthrough.
Over/Short Thresholds #
You can set a dollar threshold that determines when TORO flags a drawer as being “off.” If the difference between expected and actual cash exceeds this threshold, the system alerts you (and optionally notifies a manager).
Set it too tight — say, $0.50 — and you’ll get flagged over a few pennies. Set it too loose and real problems slip through. Most stores land around $1 to $5 depending on volume.
Configure this in Setup > Cash Drawer.
Cash Drops and Inserts #
Even with drawer management on, you’ll move cash during the day. Cash drops (removing cash to the safe) and cash inserts (adding change or restocking bills) are both tracked through Drawer Functions. TORO factors these into the expected cash calculation at closing.
See Cash Drops and Safe Management for details.
The Physical Drawer #
For the drawer to pop open automatically, it needs to be connected to your computer — usually through the receipt printer’s RJ-12 port. If the drawer doesn’t open on cash transactions, check the cable connection and make sure auto-open is enabled in your drawer settings.
If you don’t have a physical cash drawer connected (or you use a manual drawer), TORO still tracks the cash — it just can’t physically open anything.
Things to Know #
- Drawer management is store-wide. It applies to all stations and all employees at your location.
- Changes take effect immediately. No restart needed after toggling the setting.
- Disabling drawer management means no drawer reports for that period. If you turn it off for a week and turn it back on, that week has no cash tracking data.
- Sub-stations (satellite registers) can have their own drawer settings if your store uses multiple terminals.
- “Require tab close before drawer close” is a separate setting that forces all open tabs to be settled before the day can be closed out. Useful if you want to make sure nothing gets forgotten.
