Shifts and Z reports

A shift in Bitta Retail POS is one cash drawer session on one terminal: it starts with an opening float, collects the cash and card payments of the sales completed on that terminal, and ends with a count that shows whether the drawer is over or short. This page covers the whole shift lifecycle, from the opening float to the Z report.

Prerequisites

• Shift Nos. filled in on POS Setup. Without a number series the shift cannot open, and the message asks an administrator to complete setup.
• Require Open Shift turned on in POS Setup if your stores work with shifts. The register opens a new shift through that setting (see Open a shift).
• An unlocked register on your terminal, and the cash for the float.

Shift lifecycle

Stage	What happens
Open	You enter an Opening Float and choose Open Shift. The shift gets a number, Opened At and Opened By, and you as its cashier. Only one shift can be open per terminal.
Selling	Each sale the register starts while the shift is open is stamped with it, and its payments count toward the shift when it completes. Expected cash is the opening float plus the cash payments of those sales plus the signed total of the shift's cash movements. Card, voucher and other tenders are tracked the same way, without the float.
Cash movements	Pay In / Pay Out, Safe Drop and No Sale are recorded on the open shift. See Pay-ins and pay-outs.
X report	Print X/Z Report prints the X report, a snapshot you can repeat.
Close	You count every tender and choose Close Shift. Once no sale on the shift is still Open, the shift stores the differences and its sales totals.
Z report	The same report on a closed shift prints as the Z report.

With Require Open Shift on, a sale cannot be tendered or completed unless its terminal has an open shift. With it off (the default), sales complete without a shift, and a sale completed with no open shift keeps a blank Shift No. and never counts toward any drawer. The setting applies to the whole company.

Only the cashier who opened the shift can count it, close it and record cash movements on it, and only from the register session that holds the terminal.

Open a shift

1. Ring the first item and choose Tender. With no open shift, the register stops with "An open shift is required for terminal DEMO-T1 before this action can continue." Choose Show New Shift.

2. The POS Shift card opens with Store Code, Terminal ID and you as cashier filled in. Count the starting cash and enter it in Opening Float. A negative float is refused unless Allow Negative Opening Float is on in POS Setup.

3. Choose Open Shift. The card shows Status Open, Opened At and Opened By, and the Cash Management actions become available. Close the card and choose Tender again; the sale is now attached to the new shift.

During the shift

• Choose Shift in the register's status bar to open your shift card. The button appears only while a shift is open on the terminal.
• Record change added, petty cash and safe drops with Pay In / Pay Out and Safe Drop, and drawer openings with No Sale. See Pay-ins and pay-outs.
• The Cash Movements group on the card shows Movement Count and Cash Movement Net; choose the count to see the entries.

Print the X report

Choose Print X/Z Report on the shift card. The report runs for this shift only. While the shift is open it is the X report: the opening float, the expected amount per tender, price adjustment, cash rounding and final payable of the shift's completed sales, tender activity, and the totals of pay-ins, pay-outs, safe drops and No Sale openings. You can also run POS X/Z Report from Tell Me with a shift number filter.

Close the shift

1. Choose Shift on the register to open the shift card.
2. Count the drawer and enter a Counted Amount on every row of Tender Counts: Cash, Card, Voucher and Other. Enter 0 for a tender you did not take; a row you never touched blocks the close with "Enter a counted amount for every tender type before closing shift ...".

3. Choose Close Shift. The close goes through only when no sale stamped with the shift is still Open, parked baskets included; otherwise it stops with "Shift ... cannot close while POS sale ... is still Open." and names the sale. When it goes through, the shift stamps Difference (counted minus expected) on each row, fills Sales Count, Net Sales Amount, VAT Amount and Gross Sales Amount under Totals (at close), and sets Status to Closed with Closed At and Closed By.

4. On the closed shift, choose Print X/Z Report. It prints as the Z report with the counted amounts and differences.

If the total difference across all tenders is larger than Over/Short Warning Threshold, a message tells you to review the counts. The warning never blocks the close.

Blind close

With Blind Close on in POS Setup, the Expected Amount and Difference columns are hidden on an open shift, on screen and on the printed X report, so the cashier counts without knowing the target. Both appear once the shift is closed, and the Z report always shows them.

Review shifts

The POS Shifts list shows every shift with Status, Opened At, Closed At, Gross Sales Amount (blank until the shift closes), Movement Count and Over/Short. Over/Short is filled only for closed shifts, stays blank when the count balanced, and is shown in red otherwise. Cashiers see their own terminal's shifts under Shift History on the role center. For the over and short detail across shifts, see All POS reports.

Shift settings in POS Setup

Field	Default	Effect
Shift Nos.	Set by setup	Number series for new shifts.
Require Open Shift	Off	Blocks tender and completion until the terminal has an open shift.
Blind Close	Off	Hides expected amounts and differences until the shift is closed.
Over/Short Warning Threshold	0 (off)	Warns after a close whose total difference exceeds the amount.
Allow Negative Opening Float	Off	Allows an opening float below zero.
Allow Negative Drawer Balance	Off	Allows cash removals that would take expected cash below zero.

What's next

Speed up selling with a scanner: Barcode scanning. To record cash that moves without a sale, see Pay-ins and pay-outs.