Every operator eventually asks the same question at 11pm: *the POS says we did $9,400 today, but the deposit was $8,850. Where did $550 go?* Usually nothing was stolen — but until you reconcile daily, you can't prove it, and your accountant bills 20+ hours a month to find out.
1. Merchant processing fees. 2.5% + $0.30 sounds small until you run $280k/month in cards. That's $700+ withheld before it reaches your bank, split across batches that don't line up with business days.
2. Gift card redemptions. Cards sold last quarter are spent today. The tender shows in today's sales but no cash moves — a liability draw, not revenue.
3. Tip withholdings and tip-outs. Pooled tips paid from the drawer, cash tips owed to card-tip servers, tip adjustments after shift close.
4. Third-party marketplace payouts. DoorDash and Grubhub hold funds for days and remit net of their own fees — never on your business date.
5. Timing drift. A batch that closes at 11:58pm settles after midnight. Yesterday's sales, today's deposit.
6. Actual leakage. Unrecorded comps, voids after close, or a pocketed cash table. This is the one you're hunting — and it's always the last one you check.
Match each business day's tenders (cash, card, gift card, marketplace) against that day's expected bank credits within a 0.5% tolerance. Flag anything outside it *the next morning*, while the shift is two days old, not six weeks old. The variance list is short, specific, and answerable — and your month-end close becomes an hour instead of a week.
If you want the machine doing this for you, Coastal Consulting runs a free reconciliation audit on one week of your real POS and deposit data.