The cash box,
kept like a book
Every farm runs a float: cash handed to the manager for fuel, a boda, airtime, a spare part, the casuals at the gate. Famu already records what was bought. The cash box records the cash, so on Saturday you can count it and know whether the two agree.
Drawn from the bank on Monday and handed to Okello, who holds the box.
Diesel, two days of casual labour and a padlock. Each one recorded once, as an expense.
The book says 115,000. Five thousand short, which is usually a receipt nobody entered.
A box, and who holds it
Most farms have one. Some have one per site or one per manager.
A box has a name and a holder. Two optional numbers make it smarter: the float you top it back up to, which Famu offers as the next top-up, and a low level below which it warns you. Leave them blank and Famu does not invent them for you.
If there is already cash in it, say how much. That becomes the opening line. Say nothing, or zero, and no line is written, because "empty" and "not said yet" are different things. Famu never creates a box for you either: a farm that runs no float should not see one.
Spend it where you already record spending
A cash expense is one record, not two. You just say which box it came out of.
Put cash in when you top the box up. That is money moving from the bank or your pocket into the box, so it is never counted as income. Return cash when some goes back.
Spending happens on the forms you already use. On an expense or a worker payment, choose the box under Paid from, and Famu takes the amount out of it. An expense paid in instalments takes each piece out as you tick it off, not the whole agreed total on the first day. Try the box below.
This box has a float of 300,000 and a low level of 50,000. Watch the top-up suggestion and the status change as it empties.
A count that keeps its difference
The box becomes what you counted, and the gap is kept as a fact of its own.
Now and then, count the notes and coins and type what you found. Famu notes what the record said at that moment, adds a count correction line so the balance matches the cash in your hand, and keeps the difference on the count. Correcting the balance without keeping the difference would answer the question by deleting it.
The words are deliberately flat: "less in the cash box than the record". Famu cannot know whether that is a lost receipt, a rounding habit or something else, and it does not suggest it knows.
When Famu speaks up, and when it doesn't
Two warnings, each with a rule written to avoid crying wolf.
Running low. A box is low when it is at or below the level you set, or when what is left would last three days or fewer at the rate it has been spent over the last 30 days. A box nobody has spent from yet has no rate, and Famu says "No spending recorded yet" rather than a reassuring number.
Coming up short. One short count is nearly always a receipt that never got entered, so Famu says nothing. Only when the same box is counted short three times within 120 days does it raise it. The message names nobody, avoids the word "missing", and suggests the innocent explanation first.
The rules that keep the count honest
Spending lines cannot be typed by hand
Only top-ups, returns and the opening cash are entered by a person. Spending, wages and count corrections are written by Famu from the records behind them, so nobody can make the book agree with the box by typing.
Imported expenses count too
An expense brought in from a spreadsheet takes its cash out of the box like any other, because the database writes the line, not the form.
Nothing here changes your profit
Reports reads the expenses, exactly as before. A top-up is a transfer, not a cost and not income, and the accounting export leaves cash box lines out for the same reason.
A negative balance means something
It usually means cash was in the box before you started recording. Record what you put in, or count the box to set the true figure.
Who can do what
By default an admin can do everything. A manager can see the boxes, top them up and count them, since they are usually the person holding one. Workers do not see petty cash.
It only knows the cash it is told about
What it does not do
An expense with no box chosen under Paid from is assumed not to have come from one, since it may well have been mobile money, and Famu will not guess. If cash keeps coming up short, check first for spending recorded without its box.
A box is cash. Mobile money and bank balances are not tracked here.
Earns its keep for
- A manager or storekeeper running a weekly float
- Casuals paid in cash at the gate
- Owners who are away and want the Saturday count to mean something
Does little for
- A farm that pays everything by mobile money
- The owner's own wallet, which is not the farm's float