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I've seen this a lot too; but it's not the weirdest thing I've seen on a receipt... We once ate at The Boot Room at Cheshire Oaks and when we got the bill, the

by d2p 9y ago

I've seen this a lot too; but it's not the weirdest thing I've seen on a receipt... We once ate at The Boot Room at Cheshire Oaks and when we got the bill, the numbers didn't add up! (I don't add these things up but since the things we ordered were fairly round numbers and should've been just below £20 and the bill was just over, it was obvious something was fishy). I totalled the numbers up again and the total was exactly £1.50 less than the total shown on the bill! My wife (having no faith in my basic adding skills) pulled out her phone telling me "don't be silly" and added them up to get the same result as I had. We asked the waiter about it, who disappeared off to get his own calculator.. He added things up, looked confused and then took it off to the manager. She then repeated the process on the calculator and also looked confused, unable to explain what had happened. They gave us £1.50 in cash, apologised and then kept the receipt (I guess they didn't want us posting that on twitter!). To this day I've no idea what happened. You could suggest that some programmer somewhere is getting rich off this, but it seems rather unlikely to me. I'd really love to know what the cause was (and whether the manager ever reported it further up the chain; because this seems like a rather serious error to me.. how often does it happen? is it always £1.50? did the issue get found/fixed?).

mootothemax 9y ago
If it was off by 5%, there could be some weird reduced-rate VAT @ 5% (https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates) not being printed out separately but included in the total nonetheless. If I remember correctly, most booze is at the full 20% rate. I can imagine a mistake like this happening at least. Of course, if it wasn't off by 5%...
- d2p 9y ago
  VAT is clearly marked on the receipt so it wasn't that. If it was something simple like this, I think it would've been obvious (if not to us, at least the manager working there!). The bill was totally itemised, the total just wasn't the sum of all the numbers above it. I really wish I'd taken a picture of it now (I didn't really expect them to take it off me, I really expected them to explain that I was being a doofus) :(
LeonM 9y ago
I develop software algorithms for automatic processing of invoices and receipts. I have analysed hundreds of them and you'd be surprised to see how many contain errors like totals not matching the products, VAT breakdowns not matching the percentages, rounding errors etc. In my experience this is usually because 'financial software' systems used to create invoices is sold by companies with 90% sales people, and maybe one or two developers. There seems to be little to no quality control. No one seems to care, since 'financial software' is very lucrative anyway. In the beginning I tried to report the faulty invoices to the suppliers, thinking that the'd immediately press the big red emergency button and fix it, but in most cases the servicedesk employee does not care or even understand what I am talking about. Most of them send the 'thank you for your report, we are working very hard to fix the problem' email, but never actually fix it.
- d2p 9y ago
  I could understand if something was a few pence out and it seemed like it could be a rounding error; but exactly £1.50 on a bill of around £20 doesn't seem like it could be rounding/tax/etc. (In the UK, all prices shown in the menus are inclusive of VAT and then the total on the bill shows how much of the total is the VAT, so both the amount you can add up yourself from the menu and the line items shown on the bill should match the total you're paying perfectly).
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  I've seen a register app coded in Javascript.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    So what? There are ways to do precise calculations in JS; usually you just use some library.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      This one did not.
  - 9y ago
tragomaskhalos 9y ago
Oh man, having read this now every obsessive like me is going to be hand-adding every bill they ever get from now on. Adding up numbers is just about the only thing you'd think you could rely on even the most dunderheaded computer system to get right :(
- d2p 9y ago
  I know; it's the sort of thing that if someone told me, I just would not believe them. This is such basic crap that the idea that some production till could get it wrong seems inconceivable. They could have that £1.50 back if they could give me an explanation! =)

by d2p 9y ago

mootothemax 9y ago

If it was off by 5%, there could be some weird reduced-rate VAT @ 5% (https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates) not being printed out separately but included in the total nonetheless. If I remember correctly, most booze is at the full 20% rate. I can imagine a mistake like this happening at least. Of course, if it wasn't off by 5%...

d2p 9y ago
VAT is clearly marked on the receipt so it wasn't that. If it was something simple like this, I think it would've been obvious (if not to us, at least the manager working there!). The bill was totally itemised, the total just wasn't the sum of all the numbers above it. I really wish I'd taken a picture of it now (I didn't really expect them to take it off me, I really expected them to explain that I was being a doofus) :(

LeonM 9y ago

I develop software algorithms for automatic processing of invoices and receipts. I have analysed hundreds of them and you'd be surprised to see how many contain errors like totals not matching the products, VAT breakdowns not matching the percentages, rounding errors etc. In my experience this is usually because 'financial software' systems used to create invoices is sold by companies with 90% sales people, and maybe one or two developers. There seems to be little to no quality control. No one seems to care, since 'financial software' is very lucrative anyway. In the beginning I tried to report the faulty invoices to the suppliers, thinking that the'd immediately press the big red emergency button and fix it, but in most cases the servicedesk employee does not care or even understand what I am talking about. Most of them send the 'thank you for your report, we are working very hard to fix the problem' email, but never actually fix it.

d2p 9y ago
I could understand if something was a few pence out and it seemed like it could be a rounding error; but exactly £1.50 on a bill of around £20 doesn't seem like it could be rounding/tax/etc. (In the UK, all prices shown in the menus are inclusive of VAT and then the total on the bill shows how much of the total is the VAT, so both the amount you can add up yourself from the menu and the line items shown on the bill should match the total you're paying perfectly).
pavel_lishin 9y ago
I've seen a register app coded in Javascript.
- icebraining 9y ago
  So what? There are ways to do precise calculations in JS; usually you just use some library.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    This one did not.
- 9y ago

tragomaskhalos 9y ago

Oh man, having read this now every obsessive like me is going to be hand-adding every bill they ever get from now on. Adding up numbers is just about the only thing you'd think you could rely on even the most dunderheaded computer system to get right :(

d2p 9y ago
I know; it's the sort of thing that if someone told me, I just would not believe them. This is such basic crap that the idea that some production till could get it wrong seems inconceivable. They could have that £1.50 back if they could give me an explanation! =)