How to Learn Retail Math Concepts

This will help you in mastering the math used in everyday retail situations.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• some number, some time, and a will to work with them for a while. some cash to practice with may also be a good thing.

1. determine the total amount to be charged. this is done by totaling all of the products. to do this, you add up all the numbers of the individual products.
2. once you have determined the total, you tell the customer. this is prompt to them to decide how they will pay. hopefully, they will choose a check or a credit card and there is no need for more. if they choose to pay cash, read on.
3. now you have told the customer a total and they have given you cash. let us assume that the total is 12.34 and they have give you a twenty dollar bill. your first step for determining the correct change should be to figure out the dollar amount to give back. do this by rounding up to the next whole dollar. in this case that would be 13 dollars. you would then subtract that from the amount given in payment. in this case twenty. so you have Payment-Total(rounded to next dollar)=change or 20-13=7 dollars change.
4. now that you have figured the correct dollar amount to give the customer, you need to figure out the correct change to give. this is figured in the same manner with a little different math. you have already figured it to within one dollar so you just have to figure out what coins you need to even out the transaction. so you start with a whole dollar and then take away what part of the total comes after the decimal. in our example, it would be 34 because it was 12.34. we have already dealt with the 12 so now we handle the 34. starting with a whole dollar (100) we take away our Price(34) and that will be(=) our change(66) 100-P=Ch or 100-34=66. 66 cents is the change.
5. once you have figured out the dollar and cents amount of the change, you will want to check your work. this can be done by adding your Price to your Change to make sure that it adds up to your Amount of Payment. in this case, 12.36+7.66=20. that is correct so you would count out the change and give it to the customer. if your check comes up short, you haven't given the customer the correct amount of change. if you come up above the given amount, you have given too much change.