A cash register (US English) or till (British English) is a mechanical or electronic device for calculating and recording sales transactions, and an attached cash drawer for storing cash. The cash register also usually prints a receipt for the customer.
In most cases the drawer can be opened only after a sale, except when using special keys, which generally only the owner (if not also some employees) have. This reduces the risk of employees stealing from the shop owner by pocketing the money without recording a sale, when a customer does not need a receipt but has to be given change (cash is more easily checked against recorded sales than inventory). In fact, cash registers were invented for the purpose of eliminating employee theft or embezzlement; the original name was Incorruptible Cashier. It has also been suggested that odd pricing came about because by charging odd amounts like 49 or 99 cents, the cashier very probably had to open the till for the penny change and thus announce the sale.
Read more about Cash Register: Etymology, History, In Current Use, Self Checkout
Famous quotes related to cash register:
“Lora May: Did you ever stop to think, Porter, that in over three years there’s one word we’ve never said to each other, even in fun.
Porter: To you, I’m a cash register. You can’t love a cash register.
Lora May: And I’m part of your inventory. You can’t love that either.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as that—but that isn’t simple.”
—Louis B. Lundborg (1906–1981)