A line at your booth is not the time for mental math. Someone hands you a big bill for a small sale, the next customer is waiting, and that's exactly when the numbers go fuzzy. Getting change wrong costs you money or costs the customer money, and neither is good. This short video shows Cash & Change at makechange.app, a free helper with no sign-up.
How It Works
- Type in the sale total. What the customer owes.
- Type in what they handed you. The cash tendered.
- Read the change due. It shows the amount, broken down into bills and coins.
- Tap New Sale. It's ready for the next customer.
Why the Breakdown Matters
Knowing the change amount is only half of it. When you're busy, it also helps to see which bills and coins to hand back, so you can count it out and move on without second guessing. That's what the breakdown is for.
Cash Still Shows Up
Even if most of your sales go through a card reader, plenty of customers still pay cash, and card readers don't always cooperate at outdoor markets. My earlier post on the MakeChange cash change calculator goes into that, including why it's worth opening on your phone before you leave home. It's a good habit to have it bookmarked before the gates open.
For the card side of the day, the card fee calculator shows what your processor keeps.
Part of VendorTools
This is one of the VendorTools tools, a set of free calculators and checklists for craft fair and market vendors. You can see the rest in my VendorTools hub post. If you want to track every show, your sales and your costs in one place, that is what FairKeep is for, and my FairKeep overview covers what it does.
More short how-tos on the VARØ Industries YouTube channel.
More short how-tos on the VARØ Industries YouTube channel.