Updated 2026-09-02 · 9 min read
Closing the till is one of those tasks that never appears in any brochure and takes twenty minutes of someone's time every night. Here's the whole cycle, as it's built: opening the shift, charging, handing over the receipt, counting the drawer and balancing.
Before starting, a note for clinics in Spain: what the till delivers there.
In Spain, a payment receipt and a summary for the accountant
In Spain each payment comes out as a payment receipt and the accountant receives the summary of what was charged per day, per payment method and per VAT rate, with physiotherapy as exempt. A refund never touches what has been issued: its own refund receipt comes out.
The simplified invoice compliant with the Spanish regulation is in preparation, without the clinic having to send anything to the Tax Agency.
In any other country it works the same way, with its own currencies and payment methods. The rest of the article is about that.
1. Opening the shift
The day starts by opening the till shift and saying how much money you start with. The float is recorded per cash method, and each amount in ITS currency: a clinic that works in two currencies —dollars and bolívares in Venezuela, for instance— opens with both in the same drawer, and that's two figures, not one.
There can only be one shift open at a time. If someone tries to open another, the system says so instead of allowing two live tills — two open tills is the quickest way for the afternoon's money not to appear in any cash count.
And one thing learned once the product was out in the world: charging without having opened the till is allowed, because the front desk doesn't wait for anyone. When the shift is opened, that day's payments that were left without a shift are adopted on their own and the system says how many there were. Before that, whoever opened at midday closed at night with a surplus nobody could explain.
2. Charging from the session
The charge comes from the session itself in the calendar: you press charge and the basket starts with its real line, not blank. You can also charge a one-off sale that doesn't come from any session.
A session that already has a receipt isn't charged twice. If someone presses twice, or goes back, or the network is slow, what comes out is the receipt from the first time, with a note that nothing new has been charged. That's deliberate: a red warning there makes the person doubt whether they charged, and check by charging again.
The receipt is issued in full or not at all. Number, date and content go in as a single operation, with consecutive, chained numbering. There's no such thing as a half-issued receipt that took a number and didn't save its lines.
Numbering is one series per year, and the year is THE BUSINESS'S, not the server's. A payment at nine at night on 31 December in Caracas is still December's, even if the machine's clock already says January.
If the session is paid by a pack, the line goes at zero and the receipt says so: a zero-total document with its reason written on it, instead of a session that appears nowhere.
3. Handing over the receipt
Three ways, and all three show the same thing.
| Channel | When it's used | What's worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Printed | At the front desk | 58 or 80 mm format. Reprinting also leaves a trace |
| If the session has a patient with a record | Never to someone who has asked not to be contacted | |
| If the patient prefers it | You can type an address different from the one in the record |
The receipt belongs to the clinic, not to us
It comes out with the clinic's name, address, phone number and tax ID —which is a free-text field because every country calls it something different—, and with whatever footer it writes. ClaudIA appears, unless the clinic switches it off, as a discreet «via ClaudIA» at the bottom. Whoever receives a receipt has no reason to know which program their physiotherapist uses.
There's a single design for the receipt and three outputs that use it. That's what stops the paper saying one total and the message another.
And one rule that isn't negotiable: delivery never decides whether the payment exists. If WhatsApp or email fail, the receipt has already been issued, the failure is recorded with its reason and it can be resent from the detail view. A payment is never undone because a message didn't go out.
The text accompanying the receipt speaks the vertical's language: a physiotherapy patient is addressed formally and told about their next SESSION, not their next appointment. And that line «would you like to book the next one?» starts switched off at real clinics: whoever wants it switches it on, from settings.
At the front desk, with a tablet
Everything above is done from the dashboard. For the front desk there's a second face of the same till, designed for a tablet: counter mode. Full screen, no menu, tiles with sessions and packs, an on-screen number pad for the price or what the patient hands over, payment methods as buttons and the change calculated on cash payments. When you charge, the receipt goes out on its own through the clinic's default delivery.
You don't need to buy a terminal: it works from the browser on any Android tablet or iPad and is installed on the home screen like an app. It prints with any printer the device has installed, receipt printers included. It's the same till —same receipt, same numbering, same close—, so what's charged on the tablet appears in the evening's cash count just like what's charged from the dashboard.
4. Counting the cash and balancing
At closing, the system shows what it EXPECTS in each method and in its currency: the opening float, plus what was charged with that method during the shift, plus cash in and minus cash out that's been recorded.
You count the drawer and type in what you counted. If you count in two goes —notes first and coins afterwards—, the two entries are added together. Before, the second one swallowed the first and invented a discrepancy that didn't exist.
The discrepancy is what was counted minus what was expected, method by method, and it's totalled PER CURRENCY. It can balance in dollars and be short in bolívares, and it reads that way, with two separate figures.
A discrepancy doesn't stop you closing. Blocking the close for not balancing only teaches people to make up the count, and a made-up count is worse than a recorded difference. What the system does do is leave a trace: the close is sealed with a fingerprint of its own content, and closing twice repeats nothing.
Cash movements —change, paying a supplier in hand— are recorded within the shift and only on cash methods. If more is taken out than the cash count expects in that drawer, you're warned at the moment and it's recorded anyway: it's usually a typo in the amount, and finding it at nine at night is finding it too late.
5. The day's summary, to the owner's phone
When the till is closed —or at the cut-off time you set, if nobody closed it that night— a WhatsApp goes to the owner's phone with the day told in plain language: how many receipts, the total, what was charged per currency when there's more than one, the split by method, tips if there were any and the discrepancy if there was one.
It also carries a line of context drawn from your own data with simple rules, no AI involved: the streak of consecutive days balancing, or whether today has been the best day of the month so far.
One goes out per day and only one: the manual close and the evening notice share the same brake. And if there were no payments and no close, nothing goes out. A «nothing was charged today» every night is noise that ends up muting the message that does matter.
It starts switched off at real clinics and switched on in demos. It's switched on from the till settings, along with the phone it goes to and the cut-off time.
The receipt, outside Spain
Outside Spain it's an internal receipt, and it says so on the paper itself: it records what came into the clinic's till and gives the patient proof of what they paid. The clinic's invoicing and accounts follow their own process, now with the till's figures accurate and to hand.
Questions clinics ask
What does the till deliver at a clinic in Spain? A payment receipt for each payment and, for the accountant, the summary of what was charged per day, per payment method and per VAT rate. All it needs before charging is the clinic's complete tax details. The simplified invoice compliant with the regulation is in preparation, without the clinic having to send anything to the Tax Agency.
Do I need to buy a till terminal to charge at the front desk? No. Counter mode works from the browser on any Android tablet or iPad, is installed on the home screen like an app and prints with any printer the device has installed, receipt printers included.
Can you charge if nobody opened the till that morning? Yes. Charging doesn't wait for an open shift, because the front desk doesn't wait. When it's opened, the day's loose payments are adopted on their own and the system says how many, so the evening's cash count balances.
What happens if the drawer doesn't balance? It closes anyway, with the discrepancy recorded per method and totalled per currency. Blocking the close would only teach people to make up the count. There's a record of who closed, with what count and with what difference.
Does the receipt carry the clinic's name or ClaudIA's? The clinic's: its name, address, phone number, tax ID and whatever footer it writes. ClaudIA only appears as a «via ClaudIA» at the bottom of the paper, which can also be switched off.
And if a patient has asked not to be written to? Nothing is sent to them. A patient marked «do not contact» isn't sent the receipt by WhatsApp: it's printed, or sent to an email address they give at that moment.