Cash Payment Penny Rounding

Penny rounding (also called cash rounding) automatically adjusts the cash-due amount on a transaction to the nearest 5-cent increment when a customer pays with cash. Because 1¢ and 2¢ amounts cannot always be made in exact change, rounding eliminates the need to handle sub-5¢ coin amounts at the register.

In Liberty REACT POS, penny rounding is implemented as a variable-amount fee line item that is automatically added to the sale when Cash is selected as the tender type. The rounding adjustment posts to a dedicated GL account, whether positive or negative, so your books stay balanced.

Key facts:

• Cash payments only. Credit card, debit, gift card, and all other tender types always settle to the exact cent.

• Bidirectional. The fee can be negative (customer pays less) or positive (customer pays more), depending on which 5¢ boundary is nearest.

• Tax unaffected. Tax is calculated on the original pre-rounding amount and is never changed by the rounding adjustment.

• Fully visible. The rounded amount appears as a named line item on screen and prints on the receipt.

Before enabling rounding in Setup, you must create a dedicated Fee Type that the system will use to post the rounding adjustment. If this step is skipped, the Fee Type dropdown in Setup will be empty and rounding cannot be activated.

From the Liberty POS main screen, press More, then press Fee Types.

The Maintain Fee Types dialog lists all existing fee types. Click Add.

Fill in the Maintain Fee Type form with the values in the table below, then click Save.

Click Save, then OK to close the Maintain Fee Types dialog.

From the More menu, press Setup.

The Setup dialog opens with a left-side navigation panel. General is selected by default.

In the lower-right corner of the General panel, locate the Cash Payment Rounding box. By default, Rounding Kind is set to None and rounding is inactive.

Set the three fields as shown in the table below, then click OK to save.

Note: Once you click OK, penny rounding is immediately active for all new cash transactions. No additional steps are required.

Once enabled, no cashier action is required. Rounding is triggered automatically when Cash is selected as the tender.

The sale screen shows the standard unrounded total. The cashier rings up items as normal, then selects Cash.

The system instantly calculates the nearest 5 cent boundary, adds the Penny Round Up line item, updates the Total Due, and records the payment. Balance Due shows $0.00.

Note: In this example, the Sub-Total dropped from $80.82 to $80.80 after the negative $0.02 fee was applied, while Total Tax stayed at $5.05 unchanged. Tax is always calculated on the original item prices.

Liberty POS uses Nearest rounding, which finds the closest 5 cent boundary to the actual total. The table below shows the outcome for every possible cents value.

Note: .X2 and .X7 are each 2 cents above the lower boundary and round down. .X3 and .X8 are 2 cents below the upper boundary and round up.

The following two transactions were captured from Liberty REACT POS with penny rounding active.

The cents portion (.87) is 2 cents above the .85 boundary and 3 cents below .90, so it rounds down to .85. The customer saves $0.02.

The cents portion (.82) is 2 cents above the .80 boundary and 3 cents below .85, so it rounds down to .80. The customer saves $0.02.

Because the rounding adjustment is a Fee Type line item, it posts through Liberty POS's standard fee posting workflow.

• Positive adjustments (rounding up) post as income to the Penny Round Up GL account.

• Negative adjustments (rounding down) post as a negative to the same GL account.

• Over high transaction volume, the net impact on the GL account tends toward zero.

• The adjustment is visible in the Transaction Journal and any report that includes fee line items.

To turn off penny rounding at any time:

1. Go to More, then Setup, then General.
2. Set Rounding Kind back to None.
3. Click OK.

Cash transactions will immediately return to exact cent amounts.

No. Only cash tenders are rounded. All other payment types settle to the exact cent.

The card portion is charged exactly. Rounding is applied only to the remaining cash due balance after the card payment is posted.

No. Tax is calculated on the original item prices before rounding. The Penny Round Up fee type has no Tax Type assigned, so it generates no additional tax.

The fee type name is user defined. You can name it anything. The same fee type handles both directions, posting a positive or negative amount as needed.

Yes. Change the Round To value in Setup General from 5 to 10. The same fee type works regardless of the increment.

Click the following link to move to the next article in this section:
Accept a Check Payment

Cash Payment Penny Rounding Add a Fee to a Sale Changing the Selling Price of an Item Post an Entire Sale as Tax Exempt Cash Payment (Penny) Rounding Payout Refund Sell an Item as Tax Exempt Refunds Remove an Item From a Sale Selecting Promotions Sell an Item at a Percentage Discount