Accounting · Petty cash & imprest

The cash box and the travel advance, on the same ledger as everything else.

Run petty cash floats on the imprest system, and give staff advances that are retired against receipts. Each float is its own ledger account, a payment cannot spend money the box does not hold, the top-up is worked out for you, and every advance stays a named balance until receipts or returned cash clear it.

Start free See the arithmetic

Floats with a custodian and an imprest level · Vouchers with receipts · Advances with a retire-by date · Ageing and reminders · Web and mobile API

Nairobi office floatCustodian: Faith Achieng · Imprest level KES 20,000

Active

010,00020,000

Available to pay6,470

Awaiting approval6,500

To top up7,030

PCV-0005 · Generator service · KES 7,000
The float holds 6,470.00 available. Top it up before paying 7,000.00.

1 accountper float — its balance is the ledger’s balance, never a second total

0 overdraftsa payment above what the box can pay is refused before it posts

14 daysdefault time to retire an advance, adjustable from 1 to 365

5 bucketsof advance ageing, from not yet due to more than 90 days late

Every 3 daysat most, an overdue advance is chased by email until it is retired

Money with no invoice behind it

Two kinds of cash leave every office without a supplier bill.

One is the box in the drawer that pays for milk, a courier and a boda boda across town. The other is the KES 30,000 a programme officer carries to a field visit and accounts for a week later. Both are small per transaction and large per year, both are usually kept in a spreadsheet beside the accounts, and both reach the books as one lump that nobody can take apart.

Here, both are ledger records from the first shilling. A float is an asset account of its own, so the cash the custodian should be holding is whatever the ledger says, and every voucher moves money from that account to the expense it paid for. An advance is money owed to the organisation by a named person; it sits on the balance sheet as that person’s balance until receipts, returned cash or a deliberate write-off clear it.

Petty cash floats

A fixed amount of cash held by a custodian, spent through numbered vouchers and topped back up to the same level. The imprest system, kept by the software instead of by memory.

An imprest level, a custodian and optionally a branch per float
Payments and top-ups as numbered vouchers, each with a receipt
Available balance and top-up due on the float’s own page

Staff advances (imprest)

Cash given to a member of staff before the spending happens, for a trip, an event or a purchase, then accounted for line by line against receipts.

Request, approve, issue and retire, with a retire-by date set at issue
Unspent cash handed back and overspend owed back to the person
Staff request and retire their own advances from a self-service page

The life of a float

Set it up, pay from it, top it up. The ledger does the counting.

Every step posts a balanced double entry the moment it is final, so the float’s account, the expense accounts and the bank all agree without a reconciliation in between.

Step 01 · Set up

Name the box and its level

Give the float a name, an imprest level and a custodian, and tie it to a branch if you run more than one. A ledger account is created for it automatically, and an opening amount posts straight away from the account you choose.

Dr Petty Cash — Nairobi office · Cr Bank

Step 02 · Pay out

Record a voucher with its receipt

Payee, description, the account it was spent on, and a photo or PDF of the receipt. Tag a department or project and the cost lands there. A payment larger than what the box can pay is refused with the exact figure available.

Dr the expense account · Cr Petty Cash

Step 03 · Approve (optional)

A second person signs it off

Switch approval on and a voucher waits, posting nothing, until somebody with approval rights who did not record it says yes. While it waits it still counts against the box, so two vouchers cannot spend the same shilling.

Posts on approval · Rejection keeps the reason

Step 04 · Replenish

Top back up to the level

The float page shows what it takes to bring the box back to its imprest level, and the top-up form offers that figure. Record where the cash came from and the box is full again. A float cannot be topped up from itself.

Dr Petty Cash · Cr Bank or Cash

Worked example · one float, one fortnight

KES 20,000 in the box. Here is where every shilling went.

The Nairobi office runs a KES 20,000 float with approval switched on. Three payments have been approved, one is waiting, and a fifth is attempted.

Voucher	What	Charged to	Status	Amount	Balance
PCV-0001	Opening float	from Bank	Posted	+20,000	20,000
PCV-0002	Taxi to KRA offices	Travel · Admin	Posted	−2,450	17,550
PCV-0003	Tea, milk and sugar	Office supplies	Posted	−1,380	16,170
PCV-0004	Courier to Mombasa	Postage · Sales	Posted	−3,200	12,970
PCV-0005	Printer toner	Office supplies	Pending	6,500	12,970
—	Generator service	Repairs	Refused	7,000	—
Ledger balance of the float account					12,970

What the float page shows

Ledger balance12,970

Less payments awaiting approval− 6,500

Available to pay6,470

To top up to 20,000 now7,030

To top up once the toner posts13,530

The generator payment is stopped because 7,000 is more than the 6,470 available, even though the box still physically holds 12,970: 6,500 of it is already spoken for. Once the toner is approved the balance drops to 6,470 and the top-up becomes 13,530, which is exactly 2,450 + 1,380 + 3,200 + 6,500.

The life of an advance

An advance has one way in and three honest ways out.

The status on an advance is decided by the money, not by a dropdown. It becomes retired only when what has been accounted for reaches what was handed over.

Requested

Raised by finance for a member of staff, or by the person themselves from their own advances page. Numbered, with a purpose, an amount and an optional department or project.

Approved

With approval on, somebody who neither raised it nor is receiving it signs it off. With approval off, a request is approved as it is recorded. Either can be rejected before issue, with a reason.

Issued

The cash is handed over from a bank, cash or petty cash account, on a date in an open month. The retire-by date is set from your organisation’s default, and the clock starts.

Retired

Receipt lines plus cash returned have cleared the full amount. A part-retirement leaves the advance issued with the remainder outstanding, still aged and still chased.

Reimbursed

Receipts came to more than the advance. The difference is booked as owed to that member of staff and paid out in one step when you settle it.

Written off

Whatever is still outstanding is charged to an expense account you choose, with a reason, by somebody holding approval rights. The write-off is in the audit log with who did it.

Worked example · a field visit to Kitui

KES 30,000 out on the 1st. Accounted for on the 9th.

Grace Wanjiru is issued advance ADV-0012 from the bank on 1 October for a three-night monitoring visit. With the default fourteen days, it must be retired by 15 October. She retires it on 9 October with three receipt lines and the cash she did not spend.

Retirement line	Charged to	Tagged	Amount
Guest house, 3 nights at 4,500	Travel — accommodation	Programmes · Kitui WASH project	13,500
Fuel, Nairobi to Kitui and back	Motor vehicle — fuel	Programmes · Kitui WASH project	8,200
Meals, 3 days	Travel — subsistence	Programmes · Kitui WASH project	4,650
Receipts subtotal			26,350
Cash handed back	Petty Cash — Nairobi office		3,650
Accounted for	equals the 30,000 issued, so the advance is retired		30,000

Staff Advances

1 Oct issue30,000

9 Oct retire30,000

Grace owes0

Expenses (three accounts)

Accommodation13,500

Fuel8,200

Subsistence4,650

Cost of the visit26,350

Bank and Petty Cash

Cash back3,650

Bank, issue30,000

Net cash out26,350

The same rule, three different endings

Accounted for exactly

Grace’s visit, above

Advance issued30,000

Receipts + cash back26,350 + 3,650

Cleared off the advance30,000

ResultRetired

Spent more than advanced

A workshop that ran a day over

Advance issued15,000

Receipts16,800

Cleared off the advance15,000

Booked as owed to the person1,800

ResultRetired · 1,800 to reimburse

Part retired, rest outstanding

Some receipts now, the rest later

Advance issued20,000

First retirement, receipts12,000

Still outstanding8,000

Most cash that can be handed back8,000

ResultIssued · aged and chased

Separation of duties

The person holding the money never signs off their own receipts.

Approval is a switch in Accounting Defaults, off by default because a one-person office cannot approve itself. Switched on, these are the rules the system enforces rather than suggests.

Who is trying to approve	A petty cash voucher	A staff advance	A retirement
The person who recorded it	Refused	Refused	Refused
The member of staff the advance is for	—	Refused	Refused
Anyone without the approve permission	Refused	Refused	Refused
A colleague holding the approve permission	Posts it	Approves it	Posts it

Dates obey the period lock. A voucher, an issue or a retirement dated in a closed month is refused at entry. One that was entered in time but approved after its month closed posts on the first open day rather than failing, so a slow approver never strands a receipt.

Outstanding advances

Who is holding the organisation’s money, and for how long.

The advances register opens on an ageing strip that buckets everything still outstanding by how far past its retire-by date it is. Illustrative figures:

Not yet due42,000

1–30 days late18,500

31–60 days late7,200

61–90 days late0

Over 90 days3,000

Overdue advances chase themselves. Every morning the system emails the member of staff, copying whoever raised the advance, for each advance past its retire-by date with a balance still outstanding — naming the advance, the purpose, how many days late it is and how much is left. No advance is reminded more than once every three days, so a slow retirement is chased without becoming noise that gets filtered.

What posts where

Seven events, seven balanced entries.

Nothing here keeps its own running total. Each event writes a double entry to the general ledger, carrying the department, project and branch it was tagged with, so the trial balance and the statements already include it.

Event	Debit	Credit	When it posts
Float top-up, opening amount included	The float’s own account	Bank or cash account chosen	On saving, or on approval
Petty cash payment	The expense account chosen	The float’s own account	On saving, or on approval
Advance issued	Staff Advances	Bank, cash or a float	On issue
Retirement	Each expense line, plus any cash returned	Staff Advances, up to what is outstanding	On saving, or on approval
Receipts above the advance	(inside the same retirement)	Staff Reimbursements Payable	With the retirement
Reimbursement paid	Staff Reimbursements Payable	Bank or cash account chosen	On paying
Write-off	The expense account chosen	Staff Advances	On writing off

What you get

Small amounts, kept to the same standard as large ones.

Floats per branch

As many floats as you have boxes, each with its own imprest level, custodian and optional branch, listed together with balance, available amount and top-up due.

Numbered documents

Every voucher gets its own sequential PCV number and every advance an ADV number, so a receipt in a drawer can be matched to its record in seconds.

Receipts kept privately

A photo or PDF on each voucher and each retirement line, up to 10 MB, held in private storage and opened only by people allowed to view petty cash or advances.

Costs land where they belong

Tag a voucher or a retirement line with a department and a project and the expense is reported there, so a donor-funded trip is charged to the grant that paid for it.

Self-service for staff

A member of staff with the request permission sees only their own advances, can ask for one, and can retire it with receipts without access to anyone else’s.

Your own retire-by window

Choose how many days staff have to retire an advance, from one to 365. The retire-by date is fixed on the day the money is issued.

Seven distinct permissions

Viewing, managing and approving petty cash are separate rights, as are viewing, managing, approving and requesting advances, so a custodian can pay without being able to approve.

Mobile API

Floats, vouchers, approvals, advances and a member of staff’s own advances are all available through the token-authenticated JSON API, receipts included.

Findable everywhere

Petty cash, imprest, float and staff advance all find the right screen from settings search and the command palette, so nobody has to know where it lives.

Petty cash and staff advances — what is real

What AWRA OpsHub does today

Petty cash floats with an imprest level, a custodian and an optional branch, each backed by its own ledger account created for it, so the float’s balance is the ledger’s balance.
Payments and top-ups as numbered vouchers, each posting a balanced entry, with a receipt attachment and a department and project tag.
An overspend guard: a payment above the float’s available amount — its balance less payments awaiting approval — is refused with the exact figure.
The top-up due, calculated as the imprest level less the current balance and offered as the default on the top-up form.
Opt-in approval for vouchers, where nothing posts until somebody other than the author approves, and a rejection keeps its reason.
Staff advances from request to retirement, with approval, issue from a bank, cash or float account, and a retire-by date set at issue from your own default.
Retirement against receipt lines and returned cash, split across expense accounts, departments and projects, with part-retirements leaving the remainder outstanding.
Overspend booked as owed to the member of staff, and paid out in one step as a reimbursement.
Write-off of the outstanding part of an advance to an expense account, by somebody with approval rights, recorded in the audit log with its reason.
Two separation-of-duties rules on advances: neither the person who raised it nor the person it is for can approve it or its retirement.
An ageing strip in five buckets and daily overdue reminders, at most one every three days per advance, to the staff member and whoever raised it.
Period-lock awareness, refusing dates in a closed month and rolling a late approval forward to the first open day.
A self-service advances page and a JSON API for floats, vouchers and advances.

More we can add to your workspace

A cash count against the float, recording the notes and coins the custodian actually holds and posting any over or short to a cash variance account.
Advance recovery through payroll, deducting an overdue balance from the next payslip with the employee’s consent on file.
Closing a float from its page, sweeping the remaining cash back to the bank in one entry and retiring the box.
Advance limits per person or per grade, and a hold on a new advance while an earlier one is overdue.
Value-based approval routing, sending a voucher or an advance above a set amount to a second approver or to finance.
Per-diem rates applied to travel advances, so an advance for three nights in Kitui is proposed from a rate card rather than typed.
A printable, signable voucher and retirement form for organisations whose auditors want a wet signature on file.
Paying an advance straight to the staff member’s phone through an M-Pesa business payout, with the transaction code stored on the issue.
Reading the amount and date off a photographed receipt, so a retirement line fills itself in from the picture.

Where we point you to a specialist

We will not set your petty cash limits or your travel policy. The imprest level, the retire-by window and whether approval is on are your organisation’s decisions; the system enforces them once you have made them.
We will not offer a switch that lets the holder approve their own receipts. With approval on, the person an advance is for cannot sign off its retirement, even as an administrator, because that is the one control imprest exists to provide.
We will not decide whether a staff benefit is taxable. A per-diem paid above a statutory allowance may be a taxable benefit; that is a question for your tax adviser, and we will point you to one rather than guess.

The cash count with a variance posting and payroll recovery of overdue advances are the two items in that middle column that most change month-end for an organisation with field staff. Tell us how your floats and advances actually run, and we will come back with a written spec, a timeline and a price.

Where the money goes next

Petty cash and advances are one corner of the books.

General Ledger Every voucher, issue and retirement lands here as a balanced entry, tagged and dated. See the ledger → Expense Management The rest of your organisation’s spend, recorded and categorised alongside the box. Track spend → Cash Drawer Management Cash at the till, with its own opening, counting and closing routine. Count the till → Budget Controls Department and project budgets, on the same dimensions every voucher and retirement line is tagged with. Set budgets → Human Resources The employee records every advance is issued against, and the people who retire them. Meet HR → Accounting Statements, period locks, manual journals and the rest of the accounting workspace. The accounting hub →

Frequently asked questions

How does the system know how much is in a petty cash float?

Each float is its own asset account in the general ledger, created for it when you set it up. Its balance is that account’s balance: top-ups add to it and payments take from it, each as a balanced double entry. There is no separate running total kept beside the ledger, so the figure on the float’s page and the figure in the trial balance cannot drift apart.

What stops a custodian paying out more than the box holds?

A payment is checked against the float’s available amount, which is its ledger balance less any payments still waiting for approval. If the payment is larger, it is refused with a message stating exactly how much is available. Counting waiting payments matters: without it, two vouchers could each fit the balance and together spend the same shilling twice.

How is the top-up worked out?

On the imprest system a float is always brought back to the same level. The float page shows the imprest level less the current balance as the amount to top up, and the top-up form offers that figure. A KES 20,000 float with a balance of 6,470 needs a top-up of 13,530, which is exactly what was spent since the last one.

What does it mean to retire an advance?

Retiring is accounting for the money: listing what was spent, against receipts, and handing back what was not. Each receipt line is charged to the expense account, department and project it belongs to, and returned cash goes into the account you choose. Together they clear the advance. When the full amount is cleared, the advance is retired; if only part is, the rest stays outstanding and continues to age.

What happens if a member of staff spends more than they were advanced?

The retirement clears the advance in full and books the difference as owed to that person, in a staff reimbursements account. When you pay them, one step moves the money out of the bank and clears what is owed. A KES 15,000 advance retired with KES 16,800 of receipts leaves 1,800 to reimburse.

Who can approve an advance or its retirement?

Approval is off by default and switched on in Accounting Defaults. Once on, an advance and each retirement wait for somebody with the approve permission who did not raise it and is not the member of staff it is for. The second rule is the one that matters, because the person holding the money is the one with a reason to approve their own receipts. Petty cash vouchers follow the same rule: the author cannot approve them.

How are overdue advances followed up?

An advance is given a retire-by date when it is issued, fourteen days later by default and adjustable from one to 365. Once that date passes with money still outstanding, a daily check emails the member of staff, copying whoever raised it, with the amount still outstanding and how many days late it is, and repeats every three days until the advance is retired. The advances register also shows everything outstanding in five ageing buckets.

Can staff request and retire their own advances?

Yes. Somebody with the request permission gets a page of their own advances, can ask for a new one and can retire an issued one with receipt photos and returned cash. They see only their own records. The same actions are available through the mobile API.

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