# Step 18 — Cash Reconciliation and Daily Closing — Implementation Report

**Status:** COMPLETED  
**Verified:** 12 August 2026  
**Pull request:** #30

## Cashier reconciliation

Implemented physical cash reconciliation for financial accounts whose account type is:

- Cash
- Petty Cash
- Safe

For each account and branch day, the system calculates from permanent financial-account transactions:

- Opening cash
- Cash in
- Cash out
- Expected cash

The cashier enters Physical Cash and the backend calculates:

`Variance = Physical Cash - Expected Cash`

A variance explanation is mandatory whenever the variance is non-zero.

All calculations use the application's fixed-precision `MoneyMath` service.

## Permanent reconciliation history

Cash reconciliation is versioned rather than overwritten.

If an authorized employee performs a recount before the day is closed:

1. A new reconciliation number and version are created.
2. The previous active version is marked `superseded`.
3. The previous figures, explanation, employee and timestamp remain permanently stored.
4. The new version becomes the active reconciliation.

If any financial movement is posted to a physical-cash account after its count, that reconciliation becomes stale and the account must be recounted before branch closing can be prepared.

## Branch daily closing

Added branch/date end-of-day closing with a permanent financial snapshot.

The report stores:

- Opening funds
- Collections
- Cash collections
- Mobile-money collections
- Bank collections
- Other collections
- Disbursements
- Expenses, including paid payroll
- Net transfers
- Capital / account-opening inflows
- Other inflows
- Other outflows
- Closing funds
- Expected cash
- Actual cash
- Variance

The financial transaction ledger is the source of truth. Current mutable account balances are not used to reconstruct historical daily figures.

### Transaction classification

Collections:

- Loan payments
- Early settlements
- Written-off loan recoveries

Disbursements:

- Normal loan disbursements
- Top-up net cash disbursements

Expenses:

- Approved expenses
- Paid payroll

Transfers:

- Transfer inflow less transfer outflow for the branch

Capital inflows:

- Account opening balances
- Capital injections

Any unclassified financial movements are retained as Other Inflows or Other Outflows so the closing equation remains exactly reconcilable.

## Closing preparation

Before a closing can be prepared:

- Every physical-cash account for the branch day must have an active reconciliation.
- Every reconciliation must still match the latest ledger movements.
- Future dates are rejected.

Preparation stores:

- All calculated financial values
- The transaction IDs included in the day
- Opening-transaction metadata
- The exact reconciliation IDs and versions used
- A JSON snapshot
- A SHA-256 snapshot fingerprint
- The preparer and preparation timestamp

A prepared closing can be refreshed before confirmation if legitimate financial movements or cash recounts occur.

## Manager confirmation

Daily closing has two statuses:

- Prepared
- Confirmed

Manager confirmation is separate from preparation.

When maker-checker is enabled, the employee who prepared the closing cannot confirm the same closing.

Immediately before confirmation, the service recalculates the ledger and reconciliation fingerprint. If anything changed after preparation, confirmation is rejected and the closing must be refreshed and reviewed again.

Manager comments are mandatory whenever the branch closes with a non-zero cash variance.

## Closed-books protection

After manager confirmation, the branch financial books are permanently closed through the confirmed date.

`FinancialAccountTransaction` now prevents creation, update or deletion of any financial transaction whose transaction date is on or before the branch's latest manager-confirmed closing date.

Transactions on later open dates remain allowed.

This prevents late postings from silently changing:

- A confirmed closing
- Historical account movement
- A future day's opening balance

## Database changes

Migration: `2026_08_12_190000_create_cash_reconciliation_daily_closing.php`

Created:

- `cash_reconciliations`
- `daily_closings`

## Permissions and duty separation

Added:

- `cash-closing.view`
- `cash-reconciliation.perform`
- `daily-closing.prepare`
- `daily-closing.confirm`

Default grants:

- Branch Administrator: full branch reconciliation and closing capability
- Cashier: view and physical cash reconciliation/recount
- Accountant: view, reconciliation/recount and closing preparation/refresh
- Branch Manager: view and manager confirmation
- Auditor: read-only access
- Super Administrator: global override through the existing permission model

All Step 18 endpoints enforce branch access on the backend.

## User interface

Added Finance → **Cash Closing** navigation and screens for:

- Branch/date reconciliation workspace
- Opening and closing funds summaries
- Expected vs physical cash
- Per-account physical cash counts
- Current/stale reconciliation status
- Variance explanation
- Cash recounts
- Closing preparation/refresh
- Closing history
- Permanent reconciliation-version history
- Manager confirmation
- Printable daily closing report

The UI follows the application's standardized compact toolbar, table, form and finance patterns.

## Audit events

Added:

- `cash_reconciliation.created`
- `daily_closing.prepared`
- `daily_closing.refreshed`
- `daily_closing.confirmed`

## Verification

GitHub Actions Foundation CI on pull request #30:

- Fresh migrations: PASS
- Seeders: PASS
- Full Laravel test suite: **136 passed**
- Assertions: **1,343**
- Existing Step 1–17 regression tests: PASS
- Step 18 feature tests: **6 passed**

Step 18 tests cover:

1. Expected cash calculation, mandatory variance explanation and permanent recount history.
2. Exact transaction-ledger classification and full closing reconciliation.
3. Missing and stale physical-cash reconciliation protection.
4. Maker-checker, manager variance comments and confirmed closed-books enforcement.
5. Stale prepared-closing fingerprint detection and mandatory refresh.
6. Duty separation, branch isolation, Finance navigation and printable closing report.

## Remaining Step 18 work

None.

## Next roadmap module

**Step 19 — Financial Reports**.
