Duties of a Cashier

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The following story will take you through some of the important duties of a cashier and what is it that he does. Continue reading for more details.

Go to any departmental or general store, the theater or any other place of trade―like a retail store, and you'll find that a cashier just needs to be present. What everyone knows is the most basic duty of a cashier―punching in the items that have been purchased and making a bill for the same.

Absolutely true. But that is not the only duty that a cashier handles. A cashier has a whole lot of other duties that he carries forth. All of which are equally important. In the article that follows we shall look through some of these duties and help you understand exactly what it is that a cashier does.

Duties and Responsibilities

What are the duties of a cashier? There are several, and each of them is just as important. Here is a list of some of the most important duties that a cashier has to fulfill. Cashiers are employed by varied industries that range from hotels, theaters, service stations, grocery stores, departmental stores, restaurants, etc.

Depending on the industry that they are hired in, their nature of work will change, but the basic responsibilities will remain the same. A cashier is provided with a cash register, which he has to handle with complete responsibility. This means maintaining the accounts and records of the register perfectly well.

He has to count the money at the beginning and the end of the day to check the profits or the loss that was made. He has to maintain the change in coins and notes that were provided for in the beginning of the day and make sure to reimburse the change whenever the supplies are over.

Even though there is no special training required for becoming a cashier, a person who is good with numbers is seen to do well in this job. There are varied modes of payments that the customers can opt for and the cashier has to be adept at handling all these.

So also, he needs to know the various store policies regarding the modes of payment (cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards) and make sure that all of them are handled well.

His job is one which gets him to interact with the public, and therefore, he needs to have a smiling disposition at all times. He has to be quick with taking the items through the electric scanner that reads the product code and makes an entry, or if it has to be manually entered then being quick in punching the information to draw up the bill.

In small scale shops there are no electric cash machines and a simple jotting down of the item and their corresponding prices needs to be done so that a manual bill can be provided for. Along with making the bill, the cashier has to have an account of the ongoing schemes and discounts and inform the customers of this so that they can avail of the same.

Many times, the cashier is responsible for the return and the exchange of items that had been sold. In such a case, he has to make complete inquiries of why the item is being exchanged and inform the manager for checking any other defective pieces in the batch.

One of the most important responsibilities of a cashier is that in case of alcohol or tobacco, the cashier has to ask for further identification to ensure that the customer is of legal age.

Sometimes, cashiers might also wrap the purchased goods in bags. In case of queries from the customers, he has to either know the information or direct the customer to a supervisor who can help him out.

A senior cashier might have to help in training newly-appointed cashiers. At the end of the day he has to count the change and account for the profits and stack the notes and coins properly, then hand it over to the superior present there.

Some establishments might even expect the cashiers to help out in the other departments as well like, stocking items or pricing the items.

These pointers will give you a fairly clear idea of what the duties of a cashier are and what he does, in addition to simply making a note of the items purchased and handing out change. Any establishment that hires a cashier will know what the importance of a cashier is in a business and that he is one of the most coveted employees that an organization has.