Glossary
Cashier Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential cashier terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key cashier vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in cashier training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Age-restricted items
- Products such as alcohol and tobacco.
- Chip reader
- A card terminal that reads EMV chips.
- Contactless payment
- Tap-to-pay cards and phones.
- Counterfeit detection
- Checking for fake bills.
- Drawer
- The cash in a register.
- Float
- The starting cash in a drawer.
- Front end
- The checkout area of a store.
- Loyalty card
- A rewards program card.
- Over/short
- When the drawer has more or less than it should.
- PLU code
- A code for produce items.
- Price check
- Confirming an item’s price.
- Refund
- Returning money to a customer.
- Self-checkout
- Customer-operated registers.
- Tender
- The form of payment.
- Void
- Canceling an item or transaction.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Cashier practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Cashier training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.