I made a mistake (cash error) in work

[oopsidisit]

I have made a very silly mistake in work. Completely my fault through carelessness but it was an honest mistake. Basically I put a card sale accidentally through the till as cash and now the till is £70 down. My boss knows and I told him that I was incredibly sorry. I haven't actually seen my manager in person but I am back in on Monday with him.

Has anyone done this before? Will I be dismissed? I'm very nervous and annoyed at myself all at the same time

I don't know what will happen next but wanted to say that you have done the right thing by telling your boss and apologising

I am a manager (not retail ) and would understand people making mistakes, but would have a huge problem if they tried to hide them which always causes more problems

Ok sorry, I realise now the business is actually down £70. So a bit more serious. If you need further training then request it. But you owned up. So again there's little more you can do. I guess boss could deduct it from your wages but I'd hope they wouldn't over one error.
I booked a duplicate set of airline tickets once that were about £400. I didn't get in trouble or have to pay. It was a genuine mistake which I explained at the time fully.

It definitely does happen!

Thank you. I've offered to repay the amount but I'm hoping I don't have to as I can't really afford to. We'll see what happens

This system was the easiest to defraud - no one should miss those days.

If it makes you feel better - till errors are common.
When the PDQ machine isn't connected to the till, people also input the wrong amount into the PDQ,
People also take dodgy notes, give change for the wrong notes...

Anyway, as regretable as it is, as a one-off with that kind of amount and a full explanation without any delay/hesitation, you'll probably be fine.

The alarm bells ring when there are recurring mistakes, the employee doesn't own up and/or tries to hide it, the till is consistently down...

I can tell you about two times it happened to me if that helps?

First time, customer buying alcohol. Tapped card, card machine beeped and printed receipt, I stapled card receipt to till receipt and printed till receipt copy. At the time our card machine was not connected to the till so I had typed X amount into card machine, then typed X amount into the till and registered it as paid. The till receipt therefore said X paid, but lazy me didn’t look at the card receipt which said declined. Man left thinking all was fine, all was not fine with me at the end of the week when €35 came out of my wages!

Second time, customer buying food on a busy Saturday night. I’m the only one working on the tills and looking around the shop at teenagers trying to rob stuff. Customer taps card, packs up, says thank you, meanwhile I’m shouting at teenagers to stop taking blue WKD bottles. Customer assumed she had paid but it didn’t go through because the card machines were old and often needed a few goes. I just heard a beep and wasn’t paying attention, so presumed it went through, pressed confirm on the unconnected till and threw the receipt in the change box.

There are loads of different types of tills and systems shops use! Were they two stupid mistakes? Yes. But did they happen? Yes 🤣

Is she a regular customer? Is there any way of contacting her? If so she may agree to pay.

That's what I was thinking.

Hopefully she’ll come back and pay. I know I definitely would once I realised the money never left my account

Why would you not just refund the erroneous transaction?

This happens all the time at my work. It won't be down overall on the end of day surely? We total the cash & credit card to work out overall takings. It will just report differently.

Did you read the thread?

She didn't charge the woman at all.

So the till is down 70 euro

The customer would have known she hasn't paid, so she's a skank.
Unfortunately the OP probably has no way of recouping the money.

I don't think the customer would have realised.

Especially if the shop gave me a receipt, I would assume its been paid for and just walk away.

However if the shop contacted me and said it hadn't gone through, I would have no problem giving my card details and paying over the phone.

Because that would be fraudulent and a lie. The OP would definitely be in trouble then. Stock taking would find the missing goods.