Most POS theft doesn’t look like theft in the moment. It looks like a normal transaction. The difference shows up later in your exception reports, your food cost variance, or your register shortages. This cheat sheet covers the eight most common register-level schemes in restaurants, what each one looks like in your data, and what to look for on camera.

Keep this next to your monitor when you’re pulling exception reports. If you see the red flag patterns described here, you’ve probably found something worth investigating. Download it below.