One popular Muppets song can save your bar business lots of money. Can you guess which one it is?

The answer is... "One of these things is not like the other"... a simple song that helps teach kids to spot differences in seemingly like groups of items. Now try applying it to your cash handling bar staff and your register system and watch what you may start to notice.

The key to any cash handling at the bar is consistency and detail. Bartenders should handle cash sales exactly the same way for every cash transaction. Serve the drink, quote the price due, call the tendered bill handed to them, enter the sale for that quoted amount to the register, count back the change when returning it, and return the receipt from the register with the sale. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Cash handling details and direct register steps, done consistently every time, help eliminate theft and error.

Now the trick when shopping a bar is to look for the things that do not look like the others. Once you understand how a transaction is supposed to be done, or how the majority of transactions are being done, it allows you to notice a small change that could be indicative of much bigger and sinister things.

Bartenders always do something subtle to hide their stealing from the register, and that small change from a transaction properly done is the huge red flag you need to look for. One of these things is not like the other... why?

Know your register system. Every system has some inconsistent features when processing cash sales that you have to be aware of. Depending on your system, the interface the bartender sees (and hopefully the guest can also see) should look exactly the same for all cash transactions. Anytime the screen looks different from the other cash sales you have verified, you have a transaction worth looking up. One bartender I caught would make cash sales but then quickly bring up the default screen rather than leave the last screen (showing the sale amount and change due) up for all to see. Looked innocent enough, but that sale did not look like all the others and after alerting the owners with the time and items they found it was never entered to the system. Another used the poor design of the register system to hide his cash sale theft; when anyone entered the exact cash sale price the amount showed up in large font in a box on the screen. Can't have anyone seeing that. If they simply changed it a little and entered in the cash tendered amount, then the screen showed only a very small font “cash due to guest” that no one could verify, making it much easier to short ring the original sales amount.

Another simple thing not like the others are printed cash sale receipts. If you notice a system prints a receipt after a pure cash sale (and it should be SOP to return that receipt with the change), then see another cash sale where no receipt prints, that is a transaction worth looking up to see if it was ever entered properly.

"Follow the money" is more than just a great line from All the President's Men, but a mantra on how to shop a bartender or anyone who handles cash. Here is a scenario to look for, especially with walk up guests to the bar. A guest will approach the bar with money in hand to show they are paying with cash. If the sale is for $8.50 the guest may hand the bartender a $10 and tell them to keep the change ($1.50) as the tip. This scenario (what I call a pure cash transaction; no check started, exact cash payment) is easy to steal. Now you have to follow the money from their hand into the cash drawer. If you have been noticing how all other cash transactions look, then you, or anyone else at the bar, can notice when the sale is not entered in the same manner as the others.

In this scenario a brazen bartender will place the $10 right in the tip jar and go back to work. A little more seasoned thief will place the $10 atop the drawer and go off to do other things for other guests. The trick, of course, is to follow the money, because eventually they are going to have to take the $10 off the register and pocket it, or place it in the tip jar, or build the drawer by putting the bill in it without a sale entry, usually while the drawer is open for another transaction. A really good thief will wait for another similar cash sale for the same amount, enter that sale to the drawer while at the same time placing your cash in the drawer, and have thus made it look like they possibly entered two separate $8.50 sales when in reality they have entered only one. They can go back for the extra $10 later, usually after a quick text to themselves (on the cell phone you should not be allowing to be behind the bar), that they have $10 to remove before they hand in the drawer.

Register screens that look different from one cash sale to another. Cash receipts not printed, or not handed back with change. Sales not entered immediately to the register and then grouped together with other cash transactions. All of them are things that do not look like the other, and looking for these simple discrepancies will alert you to issues and save you money.

Don’t thank me, thank the Muppets.