Management Education: Cash Handling

I've written a lot about server education and that sort of thing, but I haven't really touched on the management side of things. I ran into this situation the other day and my employee's had no idea how to handle it. A woman paid for her meal, the employee made her change, then the lady said, "You didn't give me enough change back." another way it could have gone (I've seen it) is "Oh, I gave you a $20 not a $10." There is a handful of these kinds of traps just to milk the system.
As a manager you need to stop everything, run a cashier report and count the drawer right then. Don't hand them the cash then count the till later. If the drawer is spot on, then you know the employee made correct change, if it is $10 over or whatever then the wrong change may have been given.
I find that if it's possible:

• Don't accept bills over $20. The bigger the bill the more money you could lose.
• Don't make change for people who want to break a bill. There are banks for making change, not restaurants.
• Don't allow customers an option as to how they get their change back (5 $1's is easier to miscount than one $5).
• Don't refund cash on a credit card order. If the card is stolen they get cash and keep spending on the card.
• Require a signature on all credit card slips (or all of the ones over $25 at least).
• Require the staff to do drawer drops if the draw reaches above a certain number ($250 in example). The drawer should have just enough money to operate out of. If there's a robbery they'll get away with much less.
• Keep the safe locked. Sounds simple, but there are a lot of people a lot of places that leave it open.
• Make sure employee's face bills. The till should have all the bills facing the same direction. If you have 10 bills in a slot facing 4 different directions it's harder to count and can cause someone to give wrong change.

These things will all add up to a much more secure cash handling system. Proper training is necessary for handling cash. Young individuals aren't the best at handling cash for some reason (inexperience) so watch them closely.