Cash Rounding (Penny Rounding)

Artisan POS has supported eliminating lower denominations (pennies) for years. Initially, this was to support Canada, where their penny was officially eliminated starting in 2012. Recently, the US has stopped producing the US Penny. While the penny remains legal tender in the US, it’s use will of necessity be phased out as the supply dwindles. The US Treasury Department recommends that retail stores begin rounding cash tenders and cash change to the nearest nickel, as is done in Canada.

Although the Cash Rounding feature has existed in Artisan POS for years, there have been recent enhancements in our 4.9 version. This article was written based on Artisan POS 4.9.219.

Although this setting is easy to change in Artisan POS, we strongly recommend that you experiment with it in Sample Data and train your staff accordingly. You should not make this change in the middle of the day, as best business practices and older versions of Artisan may be sensitive to mid-day changes in cash rounding. This setting does NOT affect Credit, Debit, or any other forms of payment besides Cash.

This setting configures Artisan POS to round cash amounts for all sales to the nearest multiple of the specified value. In the US and Canada, this would typically be 0.05 (a nickel). This is for amounts tendered or change due in cash only. It does not affect other payment types.

Cash rounding in Artisan POS employs the Symmetric Half-Even rounding method, also called “Banker’s Rounding”. When rounding to nickels, you can think of this simply as Round to Nearest (since there’s no “half” case, which would be 2.5 cents). So 1.01, 1.02, 1.06, 1.07 round down. 1.03, 1.04, 1.08, 1.09 round up. Here’s an example chart:

This rounding is considered a fair rounding because it round up as often as it rounds down, and so generally averages to zero over time, for both the merchant and the consumer. Although there is no official legislation in the US at this time, this is the method recommended by the US Treasury and is the same as the method that is mandated in Canada.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/penny-production-cessation-faqs

Since the penny is still legal tender in the U.S., we recommend that our U.S. retailers continue to accept pennies without issue. You can either accept minor cash discrepancies, make cash adjustments in Artisan’s Cash Counting feature, or use a “Nickel Jar” on the side to help their cash come out even at the end of the day when customers present pennies.

In Artisan POS, this is easy to set up. First, make sure you are on the latest version of Artisan POS 4.9 or later.

From the Tools menu, choose Program Options (Configuration Settings)

Choose Store Identification

Most likely, you would set this to 0.05, for a US or Canadian nickel.

Note that the Cash Rounding setting is per Site (in case you have stores in different countries). That’s why it’s in the Store Identification section rather than Business & Financial Settings.

Cash Rounding does not change how payment cards are processed or run, or how you handle written checks if you accept them. It also does not affect Gift Cards, Store Credits, Accounts Receivable, or any other payment type, except for Cash.

As a result, the amount due is always presented first as the exact amount due, without rounding, since they might not be using Cash.

Once you select Cash as the payment type, Artisan will round the amount and present a pop-up with the amount due in Cash (unless it was already an even amount).

If you enter the amount of cash they give you, say $21.00, Artisan will show you the correct amount of change to give.

Note that Artisan displays the amount that was added or subtracted for Cash Rounding, above Total Payments in the Payments box.

Your Day End Totals will reflect the proper amount of Cash that you were supposed to collect, and the Day End / Shift Close report will show you the Cash Rounding Total.

If you’re using an integrated accounting program, you’ll need to add a Cash Rounding account to your chart of accounts and fill in its name or number into the External Accounting Settings in Artisan. It should be an Income account.