Athletics Department
Business & Administrative
Policy & Procedures
Policy Area:
Title/Subject:
Effective Date:
Applies To:
Administrator:
Policy #:
Business Office
Cash Overage and Shortages
July 1, 2006
All Staff
Business Office
Cash Overages and Shortages
When accepting cash for tickets to certain events there will always be some errors
involved. Sometimes the case received is more than the number of tickets sold and
sometimes you come up short in the cash department. In these cases we have to properly
account for the overage or shortage by debiting and crediting the “Cash Over & Short”
G/L. Below is a short process on how to properly account for cash overages and
shortages:
A) At the end of every ticketed event, the Ticket Manager or Ticket Office staff
member should reconcile the event. “Reconciling the event” is another phrase for
counting all cash, checks and credit card payments and matching these dollars up
with the number of tickets sold. The number of tickets sold times the cost of each
ticket should equal the total amount of cash, checks and credit card payments. If
not, then we have either an overage or shortage.
B) After concluding that an overage or shortage exists, the Ticket Manager is
responsible for keeping a log of all the overages and shortages in an Excel
spreadsheet. The information in the spreadsheet should list the date of the event,
the reason for the discrepancy and the dollar amount disputed.
C) At the end of every week the Ticket Manager emails the Business Manger the list
of overages and shortages for the week. After receiving this list the Business
Manager makes a journal entry to properly reflect the changes. For example, if a
Women’s Basketball game was short $3, the Business Manager will credit 55091526600 (Women’s Basketball Gate) and debit 55023-526700 (Ticket Office Cash
Over and Short). This entry basically gives Women’s Basketball the money it
was short and makes the Ticket Office responsible for the shortage by debiting the
Cash Over & Short G/L.
D) After the journal entry is prepared the Business Manager sends the J/E to
accounting and checks shortly thereafter to make sure the entry was posted to the
right account.
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