Petty Cash
Petty Cash tracks the office cash box: how much was put in, which employee was given how much and for what, the receipts and change they brought back, and what is left at the end of the month.
A typical month: the accountant receives TZS 5,000,000 for the office. They give TZS 300,000 to the driver for fuel, TZS 500,000 to the office assistant for stationery and cleaning supplies, and pay for drinking water straight from the box. The staff bring back receipts and change. At month end, the Month-End Report shows every shilling: given, spent, returned, still with staff, and still in the box.
Petty Cash is part of Accounting and is switched on per company. Ask eSecured support to enable it. Then grant View Petty Cash / Manage Petty Cash to the people who need it in Settings → Users & Access → Roles & Permissions (new companies get both on the Tenant Admin and Accountant roles; existing companies add them to their roles once).
Setting up a float
A float is one cash box and the person who holds it (the custodian). Most offices need one; add more for branches or sites.
- Go to Accounting → Petty Cash and click + Create Float
- Enter a name (e.g. "Office petty cash") and the custodian
- Choose the cash account in the books: usually 40110 Cash on Hand (TZS). Leave it empty if you don't want petty cash in the General Ledger
Day to day
| Action | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| + Top Up | Cash is added to the box (e.g. withdrawn from the bank) | Box goes up. Choose the bank account the cash came from |
| + Give Cash | An employee is handed cash to buy something | Box goes down; the amount shows against the employee until they account for it |
| Record Receipts & Change | The employee comes back | Each receipt becomes an expense (category + what was bought); change goes back into the box |
| + Spend from Box | Paid straight from the box, no hand-over | Box goes down; recorded as an expense |
The With Employees tab lists every hand-over. Open ones still have money to account for; click a row for the summary panel and Record Receipts & Change, or Open → for the full page with every receipt.
You can't record more receipts and change than the employee still has. If someone spent extra from their own pocket, give them that cash first (a new Give Cash), then record the receipts against it.
Petty cash receipts are ordinary expenses: they appear in Expenses and in the profit & loss and category reports by their category, marked as paid from petty cash.
Month-End Report
Open the Month-End Report tab and pick the month (tick All floats to combine several boxes). It shows:
- Cash at start of month, Top-ups, Given to employees, Total spent, Still with employees, Cash in box at end
- Given to whom: for each employee, what they owed at the start, what they were given, spent, returned, and what they still have to account for
- Spent on what: totals per expense category
- Every entry: each top-up, hand-over, receipt and change in date order
The numbers always balance: cash at the start + top-ups = total spent + still with employees + cash in the box at the end (plus anything still owed from earlier months).
Click 🖨️ Print for a one-page report with signature lines (prepared, checked, approved), or ⇩ Export to Excel for a workbook with Summary, By Employee, By Category and Details sheets.
Correcting mistakes
- Void a top-up, change entry or receipt from the Box Activity tab or the hand-over's page. A reason is required, and any General Ledger entries are reversed
- To void a hand-over, void its receipts and change first
- A top-up can't be voided if the box would go below zero without it
General Ledger
When the float has a cash account, Petty Cash posts automatically:
| Entry | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Top up | Float's cash account | Bank account the cash came from |
| Give cash to employee | Staff Advances | Float's cash account |
| Receipt against a hand-over | Expense account for the category | Staff Advances |
| Change returned | Float's cash account | Staff Advances |
| Spend from box | Expense account for the category | Float's cash account |
Set Staff Advances (Petty Cash) in Accounting → Posting Setup (usually 75120 Advances to Staff). If it isn't set, hand-overs post nothing and receipts come straight off the float's cash account. Expense accounts follow the category mapping in Posting Setup, like any other expense.
Permissions
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
pettycash.view | See Petty Cash, the floats, hand-overs and the month-end report |
pettycash.manage | Create floats, top up, give cash, record receipts and change, void entries |