Why cash needs a receipt every time
With a card or bank transfer, the bank keeps a trail. With cash, the only evidence that money changed hands is what someone wrote down. That cuts both ways: the customer has no proof they paid, and you have no proof of what you earned.
Cash income is taxable just like any other income. A numbered receipt for each payment, with a copy kept, gives you a clean total at tax time and an answer if anyone ever asks where a deposit came from.
What a cash receipt should show
- A receipt number. Numbers that count up without gaps make it obvious if a receipt is missing.
- Date and, for larger amounts, place (on site, at the shop).
- Who paid and who received the money.
- What it was for, line by line.
- The amount received, and if you gave change, the amount tendered and change given.
- Payment method: Cash. Duebolt prints it under the payment details.
- Optional: a signature line, if you print receipts for amounts large enough that both sides want one.
Record keeping for cash businesses
- Issue the receipt at the moment of payment, not at the end of the week from memory.
- Deposit cash regularly and keep the receipt copies next to your deposit records so the totals can be matched.
- Don't pay business expenses out of the cash drawer without a receipt for that too; it makes the books impossible to reconcile.
- Keep copies for as long as your tax authority says. The IRS generally recommends keeping records that support income for at least three years, longer in some situations.
Large cash amounts carry extra rules in the US: a business that receives more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction, or in related transactions, must report it to the IRS on Form 8300 within 15 days.
Make a cash receipt on your phone
- Enter your business once. Next time it's already filled in.
- Add the customer's name, even just a first name and phone, so you can find the receipt later.
- Add what was paid for, or tap a quick-add item.
- Pick Cash as the payment method.
- Share the PDF by text or email, or print it. Your copy keeps its number in the RCT series.
No paper receipt book to run out of, and no carbon copies fading in a drawer.
Change, tips and splitting a payment
If a customer hands you $300 for a $260 job, the receipt should show $260 received for the work. Writing the amount tendered and change given in the notes ("$300 tendered, $40 change") avoids any question later about what was paid.
Tips are income too. If a customer tells you to keep the change, record it as a separate line or note so your cash count matches your receipts at the end of the day.
When a payment is split, part cash and part card, write one receipt per method or one receipt with both amounts noted. Either way, the total on the receipt should match what actually arrived.
Last checked October 23, 2026.