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Petty cash is a small float of physical cash held by a custodian for minor, immediate payments — taxi fares, tea, small supplies — where raising a bill or expense claim would be overkill. In Hitaji 360 you set up one or more petty cash funds, disburse cash from them as it’s spent, and replenish them from a bank or cash account to top the float back up. You’ll find this at: /accounting/petty-cash In the navigation this is labelled Petty Cash under Finance → Books.
📷 Screenshot: Petty cash funds list showing fund name, custodian, limit, current balance and status — to be added.

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How petty cash works

Each fund tracks four running numbers:
  • Fund limit — the maximum the float can hold (its “imprest” ceiling).
  • Current balance — cash on hand right now.
  • Total disbursed — lifetime cash paid out.
  • Total replenished — lifetime cash topped up.
You disburse to pay for small things (balance goes down) and replenish to top the fund back up toward its limit (balance goes up). A fund is ACTIVE until you close it.

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Step 1 — Create a petty cash fund

  1. Go to Petty Cash (/accounting/petty-cash) and choose New Fund.
  2. Fill in:
    • Fund name — required (e.g. “Front Desk Float”).
    • Custodian — required: the person responsible (a user) and their custodian name.
    • Fund limit — required, minimum 0.01. The ceiling the float can be replenished to.
    • Cash account — required: the GL account that represents this float’s cash on hand.
  3. Save. The fund starts ACTIVE with a current balance of 0 — you’ll bring cash in via the first replenishment.
You can edit a fund (name, custodian, limit, account) at any time while it’s active, and close it when it’s no longer used. A closed fund can’t be updated, disbursed from, or replenished.
📷 Screenshot: Create petty cash fund form — to be added.

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Step 2 — Disburse cash

When the custodian pays out cash, record a disbursement:
  1. Open the fund and choose Disburse.
  2. Enter:
    • Amount — required, minimum 0.01. Cannot exceed the fund’s current balance (you can’t pay out more cash than the float holds).
    • Recipient name — required.
    • Contact (optional) — link to a Contact receiving the cash (preferred over free-text name; must belong to this book).
    • Purpose — required: what the cash was for.
    • Category (optional) — for expense analysis.
    • Receipt attachment (optional) — URL/path to a receipt.
    • Date — required.
  3. Save.
The fund’s current balance drops by the amount and total disbursed rises. Behind the scenes — each disbursement posts a balanced entry:
  • Debit an operating-expense account for the amount (the cost is recognised), tagged with the contact if one was given.
  • Credit the fund’s cash account (or the book’s default cash account if the fund has none) — the cash leaving the float.

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Step 3 — Replenish the fund

When the float runs low, top it back up:
  1. Open the fund and choose Replenish.
  2. Enter:
    • Amount — required, minimum 0.01. The new balance (current + amount) cannot exceed the fund limit — you can’t over-fund the float.
    • Payment account — required: the bank/cash account the top-up comes from. It must be a real, postable cash or bank account in this book (not a group account, must allow direct posting, and be active).
    • Reference (optional) — cheque number, transfer reference, etc.
    • Date — required.
  3. Save.
The fund’s current balance and total replenished both rise by the amount. Behind the scenes — each replenishment posts:
  • Debit the fund’s cash account (cash coming into the float).
  • Credit the payment account (the bank/cash the money came from).
So replenishment simply moves money from your bank into the petty cash float — no expense is recognised here (the expense was already booked at disbursement).

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Viewing fund history

From a fund you can review:
  • Disbursements — every cash payout recorded against the fund.
  • Replenishments — every top-up, including the linked journal entry reference.
These give the custodian and finance a full audit trail of the float’s movements.

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Closing a fund

Choose Close to retire a fund. A closed fund is read-only: no further disbursements, replenishments or edits. Closing doesn’t post any accounting entry on its own — settle or reconcile the remaining cash separately if needed.

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A note on the difference between disburse and replenish

It’s easy to mix these up:
  • Disburse = cash leaves the float to pay for something → an expense is recognised, the float balance falls.
  • Replenish = cash enters the float from your bank → just a cash transfer, the float balance rises (up to its limit).
A typical cycle: replenish the float to its limit → make many small disbursements → when low, replenish again to cover what was spent.

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Multi-business note

Petty cash funds and their disbursements/replenishments live inside a single accounting book (workspaceId) and never cross businesses. Contacts and accounts referenced on a disbursement or replenishment must belong to the same book. Switch to the correct business before recording petty cash activity.

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Permissions reference

Petty cash endpoints are protected by tenant authentication and the accounting workspace guard. Unlike bills and expenses, the petty cash handlers don’t carry their own fine-grained @RequirePermissions slugs — access is governed by your general accounting access to the active book. (Confirm with your administrator how petty cash is scoped for your roles.)