How much coin and small bills should a store order from the bank each week?

Start from what the drawers actually consume

The right change order is not a rule of thumb, it is a measurement. Every drawer starts the shift with a known bank and ends with a counted mix of denominations. The difference between the starting mix and the ending mix, added up across all drawers for a week, is exactly how much of each denomination the store gave out as change. A store that hands out more ones and quarters than it takes in will see those denominations shrink every day, and the safe's change fund has to replace them. Related: How do you run a guided cash drawer count that is right every time?

If your close records the denomination breakdown rather than just a total, this number is already sitting in your data. Add up the net outflow of ones, fives, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies over the last few weeks, and you have a baseline weekly consumption for each. If your close only captures totals, start tracking the breakdown now. Even two weeks of denomination counts will produce a far better order than years of guessing.

Keep reading: How do you run a guided cash drawer count that is right every time?, How do you track over and short by cashier to find real problems?, How do you reconcile the till at end of day without a long headache?. See how TillClosr helps you cash drawer counts and end-of-day till reconciliation.

Size the order to consumption plus a cushion

Once you know weekly consumption, the order is that amount plus a cushion for variance. A cushion of a few days' worth of the fastest-moving denominations is typical. Ones and quarters usually deplete fastest in retail, while food businesses with odd-cent pricing burn through pennies and dimes too. The cushion protects against a busier-than-usual weekend or a bank holiday that pushes the next order back a day. It should not be a whole extra week, because idle coin in the safe is both a security risk and money the business cannot use.

Watch for the denominations that flow the other way. Many stores accumulate fives or tens from customers breaking twenties and never need to order them at all. Those excess bills should be deposited or recycled into drawers as starting bank rather than ordered again. A change order that includes a denomination the store is already swimming in is a sign nobody looked at the drawer data before placing it.

Build the starting bank to match the order

The change order and the starting bank are two halves of the same decision. If drawers start each shift with a mix that matches what customers actually need, cashiers make fewer mid-shift change requests and the safe's change fund lasts longer. A drawer that opens with plenty of twenties and few ones is set up to fail by mid-morning, no matter how well the bank order was sized. Use the same consumption data to set the starting mix: heavier on the denominations that flow out fastest, lighter on those that flow in. Related: How do you set the right starting cash bank for a drawer each shift?

Standardize the starting bank so every drawer opens with the same mix. That makes building banks in the morning a repeatable task, makes the close simpler because every drawer is compared to the same baseline, and makes change orders easier because the fund's target shape is fixed. When the starting bank is documented per denomination, anyone with safe access can build a drawer correctly without asking. Related: How do you reconcile the till at end of day without a long headache?

Adjust seasonally and after any pricing change

Consumption is not constant. Holiday weeks, back-to-school, a local event, or the summer season can change both volume and the mix of denominations. Prices matter too: a menu change that moves prices from round dollars to amounts ending in ninety-nine cents will suddenly require pennies that the store never needed before. Review the change order each month against the previous month's actual consumption, and expect to raise it before known busy periods and trim it after.

The cheapest way to keep this current is to make the close capture denominations every night and to glance at a weekly summary. A closing tool that records per-denomination counts, such as TillClosr, can show the net flow of each denomination over any date range, which turns the monthly review into a one-minute look. Without a tool, a simple spreadsheet with one row per drawer close and one column per denomination does the same job with a little more typing. Related: Why should you keep an accurate deposit log for every bank drop made?