Cash Book Format with Worked Example: Free Excel, Word & PDF

A cash book is the day-by-day record of money received and paid, starting from an opening balance and ending at a closing balance you can actually count. If you only handle notes and coins, a cash-only format is enough. If money also moves through a bank account, keep separate cash and bank columns. And when you deposit the shop’s own cash into the bank, that is a transfer, not a second sale. NCERT explains the cash-book structure.

Most cash books I am asked to fix at year end look neat and still don’t match the drawer. Usually the owner took cash home unrecorded, shop and personal money shared one box, payments had no slip, or nobody checked the bank column against the statement. The free files below (blank formats, a worked rupee example and an Excel register) are built to catch those gaps before you close.

Download the cash book format in Excel, Word or PDF

These are free ScaleSaathi educational templates, not prescribed government forms or a complete accounting system. The example business, dates and references are fictional. No bank account, GSTIN, signature or proof of payment has been invented. Keep your real source documents separately.

The workbook handles INR, one physical cash box and one bank account per combined register. It does not calculate GST, prepare returns, post a full ledger or keep a locked audit trail. Once the cash book and ledgers are posted, a trial balance checks that the books balance.

Which cash book format should you use?

The NCERT chapter on recording transactions covers single-column, cash-and-bank and petty cash books. Whatever template you pick, read its column headings rather than its title.

For a kirana store, a clinic or a small trader, the real choice is between cash only and cash plus one bank account. We have left out the three-column cash/bank/discount book on purpose. Discounts need their own treatment; never type one in as money received just to make a customer’s account look settled.

The columns that make a cash book useful

Our format asks for a date, reference, particulars, payment movement and amount. The reference leads back to the slip, bill or UPI ID. The particulars say why money moved. “Owner capital introduced” or “Drawings – household” tells your accountant something; “received” or “cash” tells them nothing.

Give every receipt or payment its own reference, separate from the invoice number. One invoice is often paid in two or three parts, so each part gets a new receipt reference with the invoice number written in the particulars. The Excel duplicate-reference warning is there to make you look twice; two suppliers can genuinely use the same invoice number.

If you also hand customers a printed receipt, with amount in words, mode and reference, invoice applied and balance due, use the free cash receipt format guide (Excel, Word and PDF).

In the traditional book, receipts sit on the debit side and payments on the credit side. A running register shows the same thing in one line per entry. For each account the sum is always opening balance + receipts − payments = closing balance. A bank statement’s “debit” and “credit” are from the bank’s side; don’t copy them into your columns. See the traditional layout.

Carry last period’s checked closing balance forward as the new opening balance, once. Do not also enter it as a receipt, or the book will show more money than the drawer. Starting mid-year? Note the opening date and how you arrived at that figure.

Worked example: ₹7,800 cash and ₹31,800 in the bank

Fictional example: Example Corner Store, 1–9 September 2026. The shop starts with ₹5,000 in the cash box and ₹20,000 in one bank account. The entries are the amounts actually received or paid; this is not a GST working or a profit statement.

The cash-column check is ₹5,000 + ₹8,000 + ₹2,000 − ₹1,200 − ₹6,000 = ₹7,800. The bank-column check is ₹20,000 + ₹12,000 + ₹6,000 + ₹10,000 − ₹9,000 − ₹2,000 − ₹5,000 − ₹200 = ₹31,800. Both calculations are visible in the downloads.

There is a second useful check across both accounts: ₹25,000 opening + ₹30,000 external receipts − ₹15,400 external payments = ₹39,600 closing. That equals ₹7,800 cash plus ₹31,800 bank. The two internal transfers are excluded from the external totals because the money stayed within the same business.

Contra entries: record transfers without inventing income

A contra entry records money moving between the business’s own cash and bank. In a traditional cash-and-bank book both sides appear in the same book, usually marked “C”. The total doesn’t change. Tally’s contra-entry explanation describes the distinction.

For the ₹6,000 deposit above, record cash paid and bank received. For the ₹2,000 withdrawal for office use, record bank paid and cash received. In our Excel register you pick Cash to bank or Bank to cash, type the amount once, and the formulas fill both sides.

Be careful with what you call a transfer. A customer paying into your bank is a receipt, not a transfer. A supplier payment is a payment. And cash the owner takes home for the house is drawings, not “office withdrawal”. Unrecorded drawings are the gap I find most often when the cash count comes up short, so write them down the same day, however small.

When you need balances for each customer, supplier or expense head, not just cash and bank, use the free ledger format (Excel, Word and PDF) with a journal→ledger posting example in ₹. Entries that don’t touch cash or bank, such as credit sales or unpaid bills, go in the journal; see our journal entry format.

The combined register does not handle bank-to-bank transfers or separate main-cash and petty-cash books. Several accounts belong in a proper bookkeeping system, each kept separately. Tally’s documentation also shows how receipts, payments and contra transactions are recorded in software.

Why the closing balance is not your profit

In the example, the owner’s ₹10,000 adds to the bank but is not a sale. The ₹12,000 UPI collection settles an earlier invoice, so it is not new income for this period. On the other side, a payment can clear an old bill, buy equipment or repay a loan, none of which is a current expense. The receipts-and-payments distinction matters.

That is why the workbook’s summary says External receipts (not revenue) and External payments (not expenses). The net ₹14,600 is not your earnings, not your taxable income and not money you can safely take out.

Suppose the same fictional store issues a ₹3,000 credit invoice and hasn’t been paid. Nothing has entered the cash box or bank, so nothing goes in the cash book yet; keep it in your sales or receivables record and enter the receipt on the day the money arrives. An unpaid supplier bill works the same way: track it, but don’t show it as paid.

If you want one system that connects these records, read ScaleSaathi’s accounting-software checklist. The cash book is where your records start, not a substitute for the rest of the accounts.

UPI receipts, bank charges and pending settlements

A UPI payment that lands straight in the business bank account goes in the bank column, never the cash column, even if paid at your counter. NPCI describes UPI as a way to move money between bank accounts. Note the reference and check the bank credit. Read NPCI’s UPI FAQ.

The example assumes a simple, completed bank credit. Wallets and payment gateways may hold the money, cut a fee and settle a net amount later. Don’t plug that gap with a made-up cash receipt. Keep the collection, the provider balance and the settlement proof separate so they can be matched.

Enter a verified bank charge once, as a bank payment with its reference. In the worked example the ₹200 charge is already inside the closing ₹31,800, so taking it off again on the reconciliation sheet creates a fresh error. Refunds, failed payments and chargebacks need their own entry; deleting the original row is not a correction.

Close the cash book: two checks, not one

First, count the physical cash

Pick one cut-off time and count the notes and coins in the cash box. Compare the count with the book. In our example a count of ₹7,800 matches. A count of ₹7,750 gives ₹7,750 − ₹7,800 = −₹50, a shortage to trace, not a figure to quietly book as “sundry expense”.

Before you correct anything, look for a missed receipt, a payment entered twice, a wrong date, UPI typed under cash, or unrecorded drawings. A correct closing figure doesn’t prove the month was right. If the running cash balance ever goes negative, something was missed, because a cash box cannot hold less than zero. The workbook flags it.

Then reconcile the bank account

Compare your bank column with the bank statement for the same date. First add the bank-only items you missed and fix your own errors. What is left should be timing: cheques issued but not yet cleared, or deposits not yet credited. NCERT’s bank-reconciliation chapter provides the underlying method. For both BRS layouts, an overdraft case and a filled ₹ example, see our bank reconciliation statement format.

The worksheet uses a simple bridge: adjusted book bank balance + issued payments not yet cleared − deposits not yet credited = expected statement balance. Compare that with the actual statement. Each timing item should match a specific transaction.

In our worked example there are no timing items at the cut-off, so book and statement both show ₹31,800. As a separate illustration, if a checked book showed ₹31,800 with ₹1,200 of uncleared payments and ₹2,000 of deposits not yet credited, the expected statement would be ₹31,000. Only enter timing items that really exist in your records.

Petty cash: control the float, not just the total

Petty cash works when one named person handles small, repeated payments from a fixed float. Under the imprest system you top the float back up by exactly what was spent. The vouchers carry the expense; the top-up just refills the box, so don’t record the same expense twice. NCERT discusses the petty-cash approach.

As a separate fictional example, a ₹2,000 float with ₹650 of payments backed by slips leaves ₹1,350. Topping up ₹650 brings it back to ₹2,000. Don’t top up a payment that has no slip until someone explains it; in my experience that rule does more than any elaborate sheet. The download has no separate petty-cash analysis book; the Cash Only sheet can track one float, with expense heads kept separately.

How to use the Excel cash book without breaking it

Start Here explains scope and controls. Cash Only has 60 prepared entry rows. Cash and Bank has 100. Worked Example is a separate demonstration, not your opening data. Close and Reconcile compares the selected combined register with count/statement inputs. Sources records the educational basis and limitations.

Enter genuine opening figures in the labelled cells, then fill the blue input cells in date order. In the combined register, choose one of the six movement labels and enter a positive amount. In Cash Only, enter one positive receipt or one positive payment per row. Leave the other side blank or zero; do not enter both positive sides to conceal a net amount.

The workbook checks common input problems including missing details, duplicate references, non-numeric or non-positive amounts, invalid movement labels and reversed date order. Invalid rows stop the relevant totals from appearing as complete. Negative cash is displayed and flagged; a negative bank balance is retained with an overdraft-review warning. These are checks to investigate, not accounting decisions made for you.

The formulas remain visible and editable. Their green fill is not password protection. Do not overwrite calculated cells or assume the workbook can detect every edit to a formula. All prepared rows are included in totals, even when you hide or filter them. Do not type beyond the prepared capacity and assume those entries are included.

For the next period, save the reviewed file, start from a clean master and carry the closing balances forward once. Keep a separate backup. The workbook is built for desktop entry and review; use the supplied Word/PDF layouts for the checked printable version rather than squeezing thirteen spreadsheet columns onto a phone screen.

Mistakes that make a tidy cash book unreliable

The closing cash and bank balances become two lines of your balance sheet. Income and expenses recorded here also feed the year’s profit and loss account format, after adjustments for unpaid bills and stock. At year end, those same balances are the closing figure your cash flow statement format has to reach.

When to move beyond a spreadsheet

One careful person with a few well-documented entries can run these templates well. A spreadsheet starts to hurt when several people edit it, when you have more than one bank or branch, or when you need controlled corrections and linked receivables, stock and tax records. The trigger is how much can go wrong, not a fixed number of entries.

When you reach that point, compare ScaleSaathi’s accounting and invoicing software options, or read the free accounting software guide before paying for a plan. Try a real receipt, payment, cash deposit and reconciliation in the trial instead of choosing from a feature list.

For example, Tally documents cash/bank books and negative-cash review, while Zoho documents an account-reconciliation workflow. Those are official feature descriptions, not a claim that ScaleSaathi has tested your accounts in either product.

The routine that keeps a cash book honest: a slip behind every entry, drawings written down the same day, shop and personal money kept apart, transfers entered once, cash counted and bank reconciled at every close. Keep your full accounting, tax and record-retention requirements under separate professional review.