Petty Cash, Cash Register & Card Payments: Codes 1230, 1235, 1240 & 1250

Not all money moves through a bank statement — physical till cash, small office expenses paid out of a tin, and card transactions that settle a day or two later all need their own holding codes until they're reconciled.

The codes, and what each one holds

Code 1230 — Petty Cash is a small float kept on-site for minor, low-value purchases too small to justify a bank payment.

Code 1235 — Cash Register records physical cash taken over the counter in a retail-style business, before it's banked.

Code 1240 — Company Credit Card tracks spending on a business credit card, which behaves more like a short-term liability day to day even though it's grouped here.

Code 1250 — Credit Card Receipts is a holding account for card payments taken from customers that haven't yet cleared into the bank account. All four are Current Assets codes and normally carry a debit balance.

A worked example

Say a shop takes £450 over the counter on a Saturday — £150 in cash and £300 by card — and the card payment settles into the bank two working days later.

Cash Register (code 1235): £150 debited immediately for the cash taken.

Credit Card Receipts (code 1250): £300 debited immediately, sitting there until the payment clears.

Once the card settlement lands two days later, Credit Card Receipts is credited back down £300 and the Bank Current Account (code 1200) is debited the same amount.

Why this matters day to day

Without a holding code for card receipts, a business would either record the sale twice (once when taken, once when it clears) or miss the timing gap entirely, making daily till reconciliation much harder. Petty cash, in particular, is also one of the easiest balances to lose track of if receipts aren't kept for every small purchase made from it.