Cash drawer lockdown

You use the cash drawer lockdown feature to allow employees to assign cash drawers to themselves. Once a cash drawer is locked down to a specific employee, only that employee can use that drawer to make transactions during the employee's shift. At the end of the shift, the employee must close the cash drawer before clocking out.

A locked down drawer is more secure because it is not shared with other employees (although managers can override this restriction). Locked down drawers also make it easier for a restaurant manager to track cash flow in a drawer and to resolve cash discrepancies, because the manager knows exactly who is accessing the cash drawer.

Keep the following in mind when using the cash drawer lockdown feature:

  • The cash drawer lockdown feature does not physically lock the drawer. Instead, the feature prevents an employee from using the Toast cash drawer interface to make transactions in a cash drawer that is locked to another employee.

  • Cash drawer lockdown does not have any special permissions of its own. If employees have the permissions to access a cash drawer, they can lock down the drawer themselves. For more information about cash management permissions, see User permissions for cash management.

  • A restaurant employee (typically a manager) who has the Manager > 3.19 Cash Drawer Lockdown (Override) permission can override a locked down setting on a cash drawer. Use cases for managerial overrides include the manager having to make transactions in the cash drawer (such as a payout transaction to buy restaurant goods), adjusting the starting balance of the cash drawer, and closing the cash drawer.

  • A locked cash drawer can be unlocked only by closing the drawer.

  • The employee to whom a cash drawer is locked down must close the cash drawer during the shift review.

  • If a terminal has dual drawers connected, an employee can lock down either drawer. The other drawer can be left unlocked or a different employee can lock it down.

  • For security reasons, cashiers should be required to assign cash drawers to themselves.

Configure cash drawer lockdown

To set up the cash drawer lockdown feature for restaurant employees, you should enable the three Shift Review/Closeout configuration options listed below.

To configure cash drawer lockdown

  1. Access Toast Web.

  2. Choose Employees > Shift review > Shift review to open the Shift review setup page.

  3. Select the Customize shift review button. Continue to the Require shift review screen, navigate to the Require shift review setting and select the Shift review is required option.

  4. Continue to the Close cash drawer screen, navigate to the Lock employee to cash drawer setting and select the Required - Employees assigned a drawer-lock job are required to lock themselves to a cash drawer option.

  5. Save and publish your changes.

Lock down a cash drawer

To lock down a cash drawer, you use the open lock icon that displays on the Toast POS device. This icon appears next to the drawer name in the Active tab and at the top of the drawer view.

The lock icon used for Cash Drawer Lockdown.

To lock down a cash drawer to an employee

  1. On the Cash drawers screen, tap the open lock icon next to the drawer name.

    The Toast POS device showing the open lock icon in a cash drawer view.

  2. In the Cash Drawer Lockdown dialog, tap Lock.

    The Toast POS device showing the first Cash Drawer Lockdown dialog.

  3. In the second Cash Drawer Lockdown dialog, tap Go.

    The Toast POS device showing the second Cash Drawer Lockdown dialog.

As a result, the cash drawer view shows the closed lock icon and also the name of the employee who has the cash drawer locked down, as in this example:

The Toast POS device showing the closed lock icon in a cash drawer view.