Cash and front-desk controls

Operate front-desk collection, cashier sessions, denomination cash-ups, custody and daily handover evidence.

Product-truth rule

Makronexus keeps several records deliberately separate. A payer's intention, a provider session, a Payment record, an invoice allocation, a receipt, a cashier count, a bank deposit and a reconciliation match answer different questions. Never collapse them into one green badge. A safe operator follows the evidence chain and names the exact record that proves each claim.

At Mupfure Learning Academy, use the authenticated tenant and selected school on every collection action. Confirm the student, invoice, currency, amount, channel and business date before mutation. Use generated identifiers and audit fields after mutation; do not rely on a toast, copied reference or printed page as the sole proof. Where a provider is missing, inactive or lacks credentials, provider workspaces may show warnings or placeholder data. Placeholder rows are not transactions and must never enter a handover, receipt or reconciliation total.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this chapter, you can:

• explain the records and lifecycle dimensions used by this workflow;
• choose the correct workspace and exact permission for each action;
• perform the workflow without treating a UI success message as financial proof;
• identify exceptions before they alter invoices, cash, receipts or external evidence;
• assemble an audit trail another reviewer can reproduce.

Prerequisites

• Approved tills, cashboxes and cashier assignments
• Active denomination catalogue and variance policy
• Front-desk collection permission

Key definitions and boundaries

The Front Desk is the recommended student-and-invoice collection path. A cashier session proves authority, business date, till, currency and opening-float provenance. A cash-up proves the physical denomination count and variance review. Cash Custody proves sealed-bag handoff, independent custodians and receiver recounts. A deposit batch proves governed movement from accepted custody into Cash in Transit and eventually bank evidence. One record cannot replace the others.

Roles and exact permissions

Use only abilities assigned for the active tenant and school. Backend enforcement remains authoritative, and route aliases do not replace endpoint-specific permissions.

• financial_payment:create
• financial_payment:read
• financial_receipt:create
• financial_receipt:read
• finance_control:read
• finance_control:request_change
• finance_control:approve
• finance_control:readiness

A role that can view a record does not automatically have authority to create, confirm, verify, allocate, refund, approve or delete it. Apply segregation of duties for independent monetary decisions.

Workflow map

Guided procedure

1. Open with authority

Use the assigned cashier identity, till/cashbox, business date, school and currency. Confirm opening-float provenance before collection. Never collect under another user or move cash between tills without a governed transfer. Readiness blockers must be cleared or explicitly approved before opening or closing.

2. Collect from the front desk

Search the student and select an open invoice. The product uses amountOutstanding as the headline amount to collect. Review discount breakdown and apply only eligible, approved discounts before accepting cash. Capture the Payment, allocate it and issue a receipt while the payer is present. Place physical cash under the assigned till controls immediately.

3. Request close and count denominations

At shift end, stop taking new transactions according to school procedure. Request close, create the cash-up and count each active denomination for the session currency and business date. Count fit, damaged and counterfeit_suspect separately. Quantities are unsigned integers; the system derives values in minor units. Recounts require reasons and must not overwrite prior count evidence silently.

4. Review differences

Compare expected cash to declared count. Record reviewer decision and notes. A material or unexplained variance requires an investigation classification, findings and resolution before approval. Do not plug the difference with a fake Payment, receipt or opening float.

5. Handover physical cash

After approved cash-up, create sealed-bag custody evidence with independent custodians and receiver recount. Deposit batches then derive manifests from accepted custody, witness dispatch, track Cash in Transit and wait for statement confirmation. P4 teaches the controlled handover; final bank reconciliation belongs to P6.

Worked Mupfure scenario

A cashier opens a USD session with an approved USD 100 float, collects USD 1,240, and requests close. The denomination count totals USD 1,338, creating a USD 2 shortage against the expected USD 1,340. The reviewer rejects a casual “rounding” explanation, records an investigation, confirms a receipt entry error, and requires the approved correction. After the corrected expected total matches, the cash-up is approved, the cash is sealed and accepted into vault custody, and a later deposit batch tracks it to the bank.

Control standard

Apply the following control standard to every collection channel:

1. Identify the payer, student, school, currency and obligation independently.
2. Authorise the operator through the exact route permission, not only menu visibility.
3. Capture the channel evidence required for that method, such as a bank reference, mobile number, card last four digits or cash-session identity.
4. Verify the resulting lifecycle state and immutable identifiers after the request completes.
5. Allocate only against valid invoices and prove that allocated plus unallocated value equals the payment amount.
6. Issue evidence only from the saved Payment and its allocation context.
7. Handover cash, provider and exception evidence to the correct downstream workspace without pretending that P5 posting or P6 reconciliation is complete.

Maker and reviewer should be different people for verification, refunds, cash-up approval, custody acceptance, deposit dispatch and any manual provider confirmation. When staffing makes this impossible, record the approved exception and obtain retrospective review under school policy. Never share credentials, edit gateway payloads, reuse another operator's session, or delete evidence merely to remove a discrepancy.

Failure modes

Failure or warning	Required response
Cash collected without a session	Quarantine the evidence and cash; do not attach it retrospectively to another cashier.
Inactive denomination used	Stop and obtain an effective catalogue correction rather than forcing an arbitrary line.
Variance hidden with fake transaction	Preserve the variance and investigate; fabrication destroys the control trail.
Bag accepted without independent recount	Hold custody acceptance and follow the receiver recount procedure.
Deposit dispatched without derived manifest	Do not mark Cash in Transit; rebuild from accepted custody evidence.

Verification checklist

Before declaring this workflow complete, verify:

• the tenant, school, student and operator identities are correct;
• amount, currency, business/payment date and channel agree with source evidence;
• every attempt, Payment, allocation, receipt or control record has its own saved identifier;
• lifecycle states are read from the saved records after mutation;
• allocated and unallocated values conserve the Payment amount;
• duplicate and idempotency searches were completed where uncertainty existed;
• approval, verification and exception notes identify actors and timestamps;
• cash/provider/bank evidence was handed to the correct downstream workspace;
• no P5 posting or P6 reconciliation completion is claimed without those records.

Practice and knowledge check

1. Draw the identity chain from cashier assignment to deposit batch.
2. Explain why a balanced receipt total does not prove physical cash on hand.
3. Perform a denomination count with damaged and counterfeit-suspect notes and document the variance decision.

Record your answers with the Payment/attempt/receipt/control IDs used. A reviewer must be able to reproduce the result from Makronexus without relying on screenshots alone.