Operations
Teller cash, vault limits, and why mystery balances start at the till
How Ghanaian MFIs and savings and loans should run teller cash, dual-control vaults, and same-day reconciliation so PAR and deposits stay honest.
Abena Owusu, Product Strategist · 14 January 2026 · 14 min read
Most mystery savings balances in Ghanaian institutions are not software bugs. They are tills that closed on a notebook while the core was left for tomorrow. A deposit that lives on a paper receipt until Friday is a deposit that cannot appear on a customer's portal, cannot match a MoMo webhook, and cannot defend an examination sample. OrbitMFI's teller workflows exist so cash, MoMo, and ledger post in the same minute.
Start with a vault limit that is actually enforced. A cashier who can draw GH₵80,000 without a second key is an operational incident waiting for a weekend. Dual control is not theatre: it is two named people, two timestamps, and a journal. If your software cannot show who opened the vault, you do not have a vault — you have a drawer.
Close the till against posted work, not against hope
A till close is a three-way match: physical cash, posted receipts, and the expected float. Differences belong in a documented variance with a reason code, not in a WhatsApp apology. Train cashiers that 'I will post it later' is how a customer pays twice or not at all.
Give supervisors a worklist of unposted or unmatched items before they leave the branch. OrbitMFI surfaces those exceptions because collections SMS at 6 a.m. will otherwise nag people who already paid in cash.
- Named cashier sessions with opening and closing floats.
- Receipt numbers that customers can quote on the portal.
- Variance codes that internal audit can sample.
- No end-of-day until unmatched MoMo is either posted or parked.
Inter-branch cash is a product, not a favour
When Tarkwa sends cash to Takoradi, the movement needs a transfer, a transit status, and an acknowledgement. Institutions that treat it as a phone call discover the gap at month-end. Model it as a controlled transfer with dual control at each end.
What good looks like in thirty days
Every till closes the same day. Vault limits are in the system, not a memo. Customers see deposits on the portal before they reach the lorry station. Internal audit can pull a week's variances without reconstructing Excel. That is teller discipline. Everything else is folklore.
