Documenting Void and Comp Abuse

A void report is a signal; the record is what makes it usable

Document a void or comp pattern by exporting the transaction detail by employee ID, separating pre-payment from post-payment adjustments, comparing against a stated store baseline over the same period, and writing what the report shows — not what you think it means. POS data is the strongest evidence a restaurant produces and the most commonly wasted, because it stays in a report nobody attaches to anything.

The distinction that matters most: voiding an item before payment is ordinary operations. A guest changes their mind, a ticket fires wrong, a modifier was missed. Voiding or comping after payment is tendered is a different act entirely, and a report that does not separate the two is not evidence of anything.

Related but separate: the count variance at close is documenting a cash drawer shortage, and where the pattern raises a genuine suspicion of intentional taking, that is suspected employee theft — a restricted investigation, not a write-up. If a manager, camera, or named witness saw an unpaid or fake comp leave with the employee, that discipline step is the restaurant employee theft write-up. A withheld tip-out or tip-pool skim is the restaurant tip-theft write-up.

What to pull, and what each field is for

Field	Why the record needs it
Employee ID and name	Ties activity to a sign-in, not to a shift
Terminal and date	Distinguishes one register from one person
Ticket number and time	Makes each instance checkable
Item and amount	Establishes scale
Void vs comp vs discount vs refund	Different acts with different policies
Pre-payment or post-payment	The single most important field on this page
Reason code	And whether one was entered at all
Approving manager ID	Whether approval was required and who gave it
Shift totals as % of net sales	The comparable unit
Store baseline, same period	Without it, the percentage means nothing
Other sign-ins on that terminal	Shared logins invalidate individual attribution
Camera over the terminal	Exported the same day if the pattern is material

Export the detail, not the summary. Many systems retain ticket-level void detail for a shorter window than the daily rollups, and the detail is the part that lets someone check a single instance.

What the record should say

Not usable:

Katie's voids are insane. Way higher than anyone else. She's comping her friends and probably pocketing the cash. Writing her up for theft.

Usable:

POS adjustment review, 3/1–3/14, K. Alvarez (bartender, employee ID 2041). Source: void/comp detail export by employee, pulled 3/15, attached. Period covers 12 shifts, all on Terminal 3 (bar). Other sign-ins on Terminal 3 during those shifts: none.

Voids: 41 totaling $612.40, equal to 5.9% of net sales on her shifts. Store average across the same 14 days: 1.8%. Bar-only average across the same 14 days: 2.4%.

Pre-payment voids: 32 ($416.25). This is within the normal range for the bar. Post-payment voids: 9 ($196.15), across 6 shifts. Bar average for post-payment voids across the same period: 2 total.

Reason codes: 27 of 41 voids carry a reason code. 14 have none, of which 8 are post-payment. Policy requires a reason code on every adjustment (Handbook §6.3, acknowledged 8/9).

Approvals: the POS requires manager approval on post-payment voids. All 9 show approval under the shared manager code MGR-BAR, which four managers use. The system does not attribute those approvals to an individual.

Comps: 11 totaling $184.00, all with reason codes, within the bar range.

Prior related records: cash variance 3/2 ($44.75, coached), 3/14 ($62.40, written warning).

Employee has not yet been shown this report. No conclusion reached.

The shared manager approval code is the most useful line in that record and the least comfortable. It means the post-payment voids were approved by someone the system cannot identify, which is a control failure the operation owns before anyone owns anything else.

What not to write down

• "Stealing," "pocketing," "fraud." The export shows transactions. It does not show where money went.
• A rate with no baseline. "6% voids" is meaningless without your store's number over the same period.
• A total with no pre- and post-payment split. It bundles routine operations with the thing you are actually looking at.
• An attribution you cannot support. Shared sign-ins, shared approval codes, and a terminal three people use all break individual attribution, and the record has to say so.
• A pattern that is really a role difference. Bartenders void more than lunch servers in most operations. Compare like with like.
• A conclusion written before the conversation. Show the employee the report first. The number of these that resolve into "the POS re-fires as a void when we split a check that way" is not small.

Which document this becomes

Usually a write-up for a POS adjustment procedure violation — the missing reason codes, the post-payment adjustments outside policy, the bypassed approval. That is something the employee controls and the handbook names, and it survives review in a way that "high voids" does not. Build it from the eleven fields on restaurant employee write-up or run it through the write-up generator.

Two other routes:

• A control finding rather than an employee record. Shared manager approval codes, no required reason codes, and terminals with shared logins are operations problems. Write them up as such and fix them; disciplining an individual for a gap the system allows is both unfair and ineffective.
• A restricted investigation if the adjustment pattern sits alongside cash variances, inventory loss, or something a witness observed. Do not run that as a write-up — see suspected employee theft and preserve camera the same day.

Follow-up

Before the conversation: export the detail, split pre- and post-payment, compute the baseline, check for shared sign-ins and shared approval codes, and pull the two or three specific tickets you will ask about.

The conversation: off the floor, report on the table, open questions. "Walk me through this one on 3/8 at 10:42." Write the answers verbatim.

After: if it is a procedure gap, write the record and set a review date. If it is a control gap, fix the control and note the date you did. If it is neither, close it in writing so the employee has an ending.

Monthly, for everyone: pull the same report for the whole team on a schedule. A review that only ever happens to one person looks like targeting; a monthly review that happens to everyone is a process, and it catches the drift while it is still small. Role-level context for who generates what is in documenting servers and documenting bartenders, and the full record set is on the pillar guide.

Conclusion

Split pre-payment from post-payment, state the baseline, name the attribution gaps, and discipline the procedure rather than the percentage. The export is evidence; the record is what makes it something a district manager or a hearing officer can read.

Turn it into the document with the write-up generator. Docu-Coach™ keeps the export, the conversation, and the outcome in one dated history so the second month's report has the first month's behind it — better documentation and more consistent records, not legal advice. Anything that becomes an allegation belongs with your own HR advisor or employment counsel.

See it against your own POS at /demo.