What the Petty Cash Tracker does
This tracker keeps a petty cash book in your browser: an opening float, vouchers out and money in, a running balance after every line, the top-up needed to restore an imprest float, and a reconciliation against the cash actually counted. It also totals spend by category and flags the things that usually go wrong - duplicate voucher numbers, entries out of date order, payments with no voucher, and a balance that drops below zero.
It is a book, not an audit. It adds up what you type and tells you where the arithmetic disagrees with itself. Whether a voucher is genuine, whether the spend was authorised and whether the cash is really in the tin are questions only a person holding the tin can answer.
How to use it
- Enter the opening balance and the imprest float - the fixed amount the tin should hold after each top-up. They are usually the same at the start of a period.
- Type the entries, one per line, as
date, voucher, description, category, out, in. Leave the column you are not using empty; a top-up goes in the last column. - Read the running balance, the category totals and the top-up needed to restore the float.
- Count the cash and enter the total, or list the denominations as
20x3, 10x5and let the page add them up. - Check the reconciliation. If it is out, the findings say where to look before you conclude cash is missing.
Reading the results
The running balance is opening + money in - money out, in the order you typed the lines. It is not re-sorted, because a book in the wrong order is itself something to fix.
Top-up is float - closing balance. Under a true imprest system it equals exactly the vouchers spent since the last top-up, which is a useful cross-check.
A difference is "over" when more cash is present than the book records and "short" when less. Short is the common case and is usually a missing voucher rather than a missing note.
A difference that divides exactly by nine almost always comes from two digits being swapped, so the page says so before you start counting the tin again.
Worked example: a month on a 200 float
The tin opens at 200. Seven vouchers are paid during September: stamps 12.60, milk and tea 8.40, a taxi 22.00, printer paper 15.75, the window cleaner 30.00, biscuits 6.25 and a courier 9.80 - 104.80 in total. The running balance falls to 95.20.
To restore the imprest float the cashier draws exactly 104.80 from the bank, which brings the balance back to 200. That equality is the point of an imprest system: the top-up is always the sum of the vouchers, so a top-up that does not match them is a red flag on its own.
Counting the tin gives 200.00 and the reconciliation balances. Had it given 199.10, the difference of 0.90 divides by nine, and the first thing to check would be a transposed figure - 15.75 entered as 15.66, say - rather than a missing coin.
By category the month reads: travel 22.00, cleaning 30.00, postage 22.40, kitchen 14.65 and stationery 15.75.
Formulas and scoring rules
- Running balance
balance = previous balance + money in - money outRecomputed line by line in the order entered.- Top-up under an imprest system
top-up = float - closing balanceZero when the tin already holds the float; an excess is shown separately.- Reconciliation difference
difference = cash counted - book balancePositive is over, negative is short. Differences below half a cent are treated as balanced.- Transposition test
|difference| in minor units is divisible by 9Any swap of two digits leaves a multiple of nine - 54 - 45 = 9, 71 - 17 = 54.
Imprest, and why the float should not move
Under an imprest system the tin is topped up to the same figure every time, so the amount drawn always equals the vouchers presented. That makes the control trivial: cash in hand plus vouchers not yet reimbursed should always equal the float. If it does not, something is wrong today rather than at the year end.
The alternative - drawing a round number whenever the tin looks low - loses that property entirely. The page therefore keeps the float and the opening balance as separate fields, so you can see when they have drifted apart.
The findings, and what each one usually means
A duplicate voucher reference normally means one voucher was entered twice, or two vouchers were written with the same number. Either way the total is wrong until it is resolved.
Entries out of date order are common when a voucher surfaces late. That is not itself a problem, but the running balance will not match the physical book, so reorder the lines to match the book you are checking against.
A balance below zero is always an error: the tin cannot pay out money it does not hold. Look for a missing top-up line or an opening balance that was never entered.
Payments with no voucher reference cannot be traced back to a receipt. They are the entries an auditor asks about first.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- It cannot verify anything. Every figure is the one you typed, and a plausible book can still be a fictitious one.
- It does not post to a ledger, allocate tax or handle VAT recovery on small receipts - use the Expense Reimbursement Calculator for a tax split, and your accounting system for posting.
- There is no storage. Close the tab and the entries are gone, so download the CSV if you need a record.
- Multi-currency tins are not supported: every amount is assumed to be in the same currency.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
Frequently asked questions
What is an imprest petty cash float?
A fixed amount of cash held in the tin. Whenever it is topped up, it is topped up back to exactly that figure, so the top-up always equals the vouchers spent since the last one. Cash in hand plus unreimbursed vouchers should always equal the float, which makes checking it a matter of seconds.
How do I reconcile petty cash?
Count the cash, compare it with the closing balance in the book, and investigate the difference. Enter the counted figure here and the page reports whether the tin is over or short, by how much, and whether the difference looks like a transposed figure rather than missing money.
Why does my petty cash difference divide by nine?
Because two digits have almost certainly been swapped. Any transposition - 54 written as 45, 71 as 17 - leaves a difference that is a multiple of nine. When the page spots one it tells you to re-check the vouchers against the book before searching the tin.
Should a top-up be recorded as income?
No. A top-up is a transfer from the bank into the tin, so it increases the cash balance but is not an expense or a receipt. Enter it in the "in" column with a reference so it is distinguishable from a refund.
What should a petty cash voucher contain?
A number, the date, the amount, what it was for, who received the money and an authorising signature, with the receipt attached. The page flags payments with no reference because a payment that cannot be tied to a voucher cannot be tied to a receipt either.
How much should a petty cash float be?
Enough for roughly a month of small purchases and no more - most organisations settle between one and three hundred in their local currency. A float large enough to be worth stealing is a float large enough to need a safe and two signatures.
Is my petty cash book uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything is calculated in the browser tab, nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored between visits. Download the CSV if you want to keep the book.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
