Train a new cashier in 7 days: a plan for small shops
Your new cashier starts on Monday morning. You spend 30 minutes showing them the register, then go back to your own work. By Friday the drawer has come up short a few times, a regular has complained about wrong change, and the new hire tenses up whenever the counter gets busy. Usually this isn't because they're bad at the job. Nobody gave them time to practice before handling real money.
A cashier who gives 1 USD too much change each day costs you about 26 USD over 26 working days, on top of the customers you annoy. A week of planned coaching costs far less. This article gives you a 7-day schedule for a small shop, with no training room or thick manual required.
When hiring: a 10-minute test beats asking about experience
You can teach the software in a few days. Carefulness and how someone talks to customers are much harder to teach, so test them during the interview:
- Working out change: the order is 12.75 USD and the customer hands over 20 USD. How much change? A calculator is fine. What you're watching is whether they check their answer.
- Handling a situation: "A customer says they've paid by KHQR but you can't see the money. What do you do?" A good answer is to check first and politely ask to see the transaction, without arguing.
- Counting cash: hand them a mixed stack of USD and Riel and ask them to count each separately. You'll quickly see who is careful.
Prepare before day one
- Their own login. One account per employee, no shared passwords. The reasons are in Stop cash loss at the counter.
- Only the permissions they need. At first, just selling and opening and closing shifts. No cancelling orders, returns, stock adjustments or exchange rate changes yet.
- One page of counter rules, posted at the counter: no order in the system means no goods handed over, always give a receipt, how much discount is allowed, who to call for what.
- One main coach. Learners get confused when everyone teaches a different way.
The 7-day schedule
| Day | What they do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Watch from beside the counter, learn products and prices, read the counter rules | Can find 10 best sellers without asking |
| 2 | Practice shift outside selling hours: open shift, sell, take payment, close shift | Completes a full round without prompting |
| 3 | Real sales at quiet times, coach checks the change before it's handed over | 10 orders in a row with no mistakes |
| 4 | Add harder cases: paying in two currencies, KHQR, split payments | Handles all 3 payment types correctly |
| 5 | Works alone at quiet times, coach nearby | Closes the shift less than 1 USD off |
| 6 | Works the rush hour, with help when the counter gets crowded | No missed orders, no rushed change |
| 7 | Works a full shift alone, then a check and a talk at the end | Meets the criteria at the end of this article |
Shops with few staff can stretch this schedule, as long as the order stays the same: practice first, then coached, then alone. If someone learns more slowly, give them another day at that step rather than skipping ahead.
Day 2: how to run a practice shift
The practice shift runs on the real system but outside selling hours, for example 45 minutes before opening. Use a separate cash box, not the drawer you sell from.
- The learner logs in with their own account, follows Opening a shift and counts the opening cash: USD and Riel separately.
- The coach plays the customer and buys a few real items, moving from easy to difficult.
- The learner goes through selling at the counter: add products, take payment, give change, print the receipt.
- At the end, the learner counts the cash and closes the shift with the note "practice shift". If there's a difference, go through the orders together to find the mistake. This is where most of the learning happens.
- Once the shift is closed, someone with permission cancels the practice orders on the Orders page.
In LeangPos, cancelling an order puts the items back into stock automatically, and cancelled orders don't count in revenue reports, so a practice shift won't distort your numbers. If you also sell through Telegram or a website, stock drops temporarily during practice, so pick a time when few orders come in.
A change drill in USD and Riel
This is where new cashiers in Cambodia make the most mistakes. Post your shop's exchange rate at the counter and drill until it feels routine. These examples use a rate of 4,000 Riel per USD:
| Order | Customer pays | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 7.50 USD | 10 USD | 2 USD + 2,000 Riel |
| 3.25 USD | 20,000 Riel | 7,000 Riel |
| 5.20 USD | 6 USD | 3,200 Riel |
| 12.75 USD | 20 USD | 7 USD + 1,000 Riel |
| 12.75 USD | 10 USD + 15,000 Riel | 4,000 Riel |
Three habits are worth teaching from the start:
- Keep the customer's money outside the drawer until the change is given, which prevents arguments like "I gave you a 20, not a 10".
- Say the amounts out loud: "20 dollars received, 7 dollars and 1,000 Riel change."
- Give anything under 1 USD in Riel, the same way for every customer. To see why consistency matters, read Selling in USD and Riel.
For KHQR, teach one rule: hand over the goods only when you can see the money has arrived, not just from looking at the customer's phone. Accepting KHQR payments at the counter has common situations you can use for practice.
How to coach without making them afraid
- Don't correct mistakes in front of customers, unless wrong money is about to change hands. Note it and talk later, when it's quiet.
- Spend the last 5 minutes of each day reviewing: one thing done well, one thing to fix, what to practice tomorrow. Don't list ten mistakes at once.
- Teach them how to ask for help. If they ring up a wrong order, they tell someone right away so a manager can cancel it, rather than trying to fix it alone. Praise them for reporting early, because hidden mistakes are what cause losses.
- Explain how cash differences are handled from the start: how much only needs a note, and how much means going through the orders together. New hires docked pay for first-week mistakes tend to hide them, or quit.
Day 7: criteria for working alone
A new cashier can work alone once they can do all of this:
- Open a shift and count the opening cash correctly without prompting.
- Get all 5 change drills above right, plus a few at new prices.
- Take cash, KHQR and an order paid with two methods.
- End their last 3 shifts less than 1 USD (4,000 Riel) off, with clear notes.
- Know when to call someone else: cancelled orders, returns, customers disputing money.
The two weeks after they go solo
Don't step away completely yet. Each week, review the new cashier's closed shifts: how much was the difference, short or over, and always in the same direction? Small differences that go both ways usually mean they aren't used to it yet, so coach a bit more. Repeated shortages during rush hours usually come from rushing, and you may want an extra person at those times.
Once they're solid, widen their permissions step by step. For example, allow returns after a month rather than granting everything at once.
Want new cashiers to have their own login, shift and permissions from day one? Try LeangPos for free, then start with the guides Employees and Roles & permissions.
