A till shortage or a broken tray of glasses can be deducted from wages only where the conduct was wilful misconduct, because clause 31 of the Restaurant Industry Award prohibits deductions for breakages and cashiering underings in every other case.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for Australian and New Zealand venues, which means we hear from duty managers at the end of the night rather than the start. A drawer that will not balance is one of the things being dealt with at the same time as everything else. The clause numbers below were read from the award text on 24 October 2026.
Less than the argument about it. A A$50 shortage on a Friday is a A$50 shortage. The cost that matters is what happens next: twenty minutes of a duty manager's night recounting a drawer, a conversation with someone who is about to go back on the floor, and a decision made at 11pm that you may not be allowed to make.
Get the decision wrong and the arithmetic inverts. An unlawful deduction is recoverable by the employee, and it is the kind of thing that turns one bad shift into a Fair Work claim covering every deduction you have made from everybody, going back years. The A$50 is never the exposure. The pattern is.
Almost never, and the rule that says so is specific to this industry. Clause 31 of the Restaurant Industry Award sits in Part 7, Industry Specific Provisions, under the heading Deductions for breakages or cashiering underings. Its first line is a prohibition, not a permission: an employer must not deduct any sum from the wages due to an employee under this award in respect of breakages or cashiering underings except in the case of wilful misconduct.
Three gates sit in that clause and a deduction has to clear all three.
| Gate | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Clause 31.1 | Wilful misconduct. Not carelessness, not a bad night, not being new |
| Clause 31.2 | The deduction must be reasonable in the circumstances and proportionate to the loss suffered by the employer |
| Clause 31.3 | For anyone under 18, the deduction must be agreed to in writing by the employee's parent or guardian |
Gate one is where nearly every real case stops. Wilful means deliberate. A glass washer who drops a tray of glasses has not committed wilful misconduct, and neither has a new starter who gives change from the wrong note. If you cannot say what the person did on purpose, there is nothing to assess at gates two and three.
Gate three is the one that surprises people, and it is a hospitality problem because of who hospitality employs. If the person is 16 or 17, their own written agreement is not enough. You need their parent or guardian to agree in writing, to that deduction. Most venues that deduct from a junior have never done this, which means the deduction was not available even if the conduct was wilful and the amount was proportionate.
The award does not put a percentage on it, so anyone who tells you the limit is a particular number is making it up. What you can do is look at the deduction as a share of the pay it comes out of, which is the comparison clause 31.2 invites.
Here is that sum on award minimums, with the inputs shown. This is Skai Solutions' own arithmetic, not a rule. A 17 year old casual on Restaurant Industry Award Level 1 from 1 July 2026: the junior rate at 17 is 60 per cent of the A$1,004.90 weekly rate, which is A$15.87 an hour, and the 25 per cent casual loading takes it to A$19.84. On a 20 hour week that is A$396.80 before tax.
| Deduction | Share of that week's pay |
|---|---|
| A$50 till shortage | 12.6 per cent |
| A$120 tray of glassware | 30.2 per cent |
| A$200 broken piece of equipment | 50.4 per cent |
Put the third line to anyone and the word proportionate answers itself. Half a junior's week, for an accident, is not a defensible deduction, and it would still fail gate one anyway.
Because the till is the one piece of equipment in the venue that gets used by tired people at speed while someone talks to them. The usual causes, in the order they actually turn up:
Change given from the wrong denomination, which is the single most common and is a training issue rather than an honesty issue. A refund or a void processed without a docket. A split bill reconciled by hand under pressure. Two people on one drawer during a rush, which means nobody owns the count. A card payment that failed and was re-run as cash. And a float that was never counted at open, so the shortage is not a shortage at all, it is an unknown starting number.
That last one is worth checking before anything else. If you do not count the float in front of the person taking the drawer, you have no baseline, and a drawer with no baseline cannot be short. Our page on how much of a restaurant's takings are still cash has the figures on how much of this you are still exposed to.
None of the first three involve a deduction, which is the point.
ONE. Count the float at open and close, in front of the person on the drawer, and write both numbers down. This costs two minutes a shift and it converts most arguments into arithmetic. It also means a genuine pattern becomes visible, because a person who is short every Friday and nobody else is, is a different problem from a venue that is short on busy nights.
TWO. One drawer, one person, for the whole shift. Where that is impossible, log the handover. Shared drawers make shortages unattributable, and an unattributable shortage can never clear gate one.
THREE. Train the three transactions that cause it. Change from a fifty, a void, and a split bill. Fifteen minutes with a new starter on those three is worth more than any deduction policy, and it is the thing most venues skip because the new starter is needed on the floor. Our page on how to train restaurant staff sets out how to fit that in.
FOUR. If the conduct was genuinely deliberate, treat it as misconduct through your disciplinary process rather than through the payroll. A deduction is not a disciplinary outcome and dressing one up as the other is how venues end up defending both.
Sometimes, and this one is a different clause with a different answer, which is why it gets confused with breakages. Clause 21.5 of the same award deals with special clothing. Under 21.5(d) the employer may require an employee, on commencing employment, to sign a receipt for any special clothing supplied, listing it and its value. Under 21.5(e) the employer is then entitled to deduct from any wages owed on the employee ceasing employment the value as stated on that receipt, allowing for fair wear and tear, for any item not returned.
So the right exists, but it is built on a signature you had to take on day one. No receipt, no listed value, no deduction. And it falls away if the item was damaged, lost or stolen other than through the employee's fault, and it only operates on wages owed when they cease employment, not mid-engagement.
If you supply and launder uniforms rather than charging for them, the laundry allowance rules are the ones that apply instead, and they are set out on our page on the laundry allowance in the restaurant award.
Different clause again, and this is the one place the award is relatively generous to the employer. Clause 35.1(d) permits a deduction of no more than one week's wages where an employee aged 18 or over fails to give the required notice, subject to its own limits. It has nothing to do with breakages or till shortages, and the three gates in clause 31 do not apply to it. We set that out in full on what to do when staff quit without notice.
The reason to keep the two apart is practical. If you deduct one week's wages for notice and another A$80 for a short till in the same final pay, the second deduction is the one that makes the whole final pay look like a reprisal.
If you have a person who is deliberately taking money, a deduction is the wrong instrument anyway. It recovers one night and leaves the arrangement in place. That is a misconduct and potentially a police matter, and it is handled through your disciplinary process with records, not through the payroll.
If you have a venue that is persistently short and no individual to attribute it to, you have a process problem, and the honest answer is that it is cheaper to fix the process than to recover the money. Most venues in that position find the shortage stops when the float gets counted.
And if what you actually have is a customer who left without paying, that is not a wages question at all. Our page on what to do when a customer leaves without paying covers it.
Check your own obligations in the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool rather than from this or any other page, and confirm which award covers you first, because a venue on the Hospitality Award rather than the Restaurant Industry Award is reading a different clause number. Our page on which award covers my restaurant is the place to start. This is general information, not legal advice.
The 11pm version of this decision is always worse than the 10am version. Part of why it gets made at 11pm is that the duty manager who is recounting the drawer is also the person the phone rings for, so the recount happens in pieces between calls and the decision gets made to end the night rather than to be right.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for Australian and New Zealand venues so that the person closing is closing. It has nothing to say about your award obligations. It takes one of the competing demands off the person who has to get this right.
Can an employer deduct money from an employee's wages for a till shortage in Australia?
In a venue covered by the Restaurant Industry Award, only where there was wilful misconduct. Clause 31.1 prohibits deductions for breakages or cashiering underings in every other case, so carelessness, inexperience or a bad night do not permit a deduction.
How much can an employer deduct from wages for a breakage?
The award sets no percentage. Clause 31.2 requires any deduction to be reasonable in the circumstances and proportionate to the loss suffered by the employer, so the test is judgement rather than a number. A deduction that takes a large share of one week's pay is difficult to defend.
Can you deduct money from the wages of a worker under 18?
Not under clause 31 unless the deduction has been agreed to in writing by the employee's parent or guardian. The employee's own agreement is not enough. This catches a lot of venues, because hospitality employs a lot of 16 and 17 year olds.
Can you deduct the cost of a uniform that was not returned?
Only if you took a signed receipt. Clause 21.5(d) lets an employer require a receipt listing the special clothing and its value on commencing employment, and 21.5(e) then allows a deduction from wages owed on ceasing employment for an item not returned, allowing for fair wear and tear.
Is a deduction for failing to give notice the same thing?
No. That is clause 35.1(d), which permits a deduction of no more than one week's wages where an employee aged 18 or over does not give the required notice. It is a separate clause with separate limits and the clause 31 gates do not apply to it.
What should you do instead of deducting a till shortage?
Count the float at open and close in front of the person on the drawer, keep one person on one drawer per shift, and train the three transactions that cause most shortages: change from a large note, voids, and split bills. Most venues find shortages stop once the float is counted.