I think they use little monkeys to keep track of the coins/bills. If the monkeys are real smart they change burned out bulbs during downtime. Ops just feed them bananas and let them out once a day to stretch and go the bathroom. Its a trade secret so don't tell the ASPCA. They should just use the auditing feature in the programming menu but you know those ops.

Slow clap for those last two.

I know my local operator just weighs the coins every week for their accounting purposes.

Its probably because if you cycle through just about any menu system for any game that has a menu system- there are any number if accounting features- even 1978 SS....

I was not making fun- just explaining why (perhaps, or maybe it was the eggnog) the jesting!

Indeed- weighing coins was probably truth- you can get very very close to perfect if you simply weigh quarters. Close enough that anyone who runs a quarters based business will go with weight to exchange hindreds even thousands of dollars in coin.

I would even imagine after some time some may even eye ball it and be dead on. But I like the monkey idea the best.

We want ze money Lebowski.

Used to weigh the coins before I got one of those coin counter roller things for 100 bucks off amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Royal-Sovereign-FS-44P-Advancement-Anti-Jam/dp/B00C3WSZQY/ref=sr_1_12
you have to take out the round thing on the inside if your only dropping in quarters because it can jam pretty easily.
Then I installed bill acceptors every where. Now I don't get a whole lot of coins anymore maybe 2 hundred per collection, not worth spending money on something better/faster to roll them.

I also got a bill counter/sorter from the Cadillac of bill counters Cummings Allison, cost like 3k but worth every penny. saves at least 3-4 hours during collection days.
you can get cheaper ones for half the price, but then you usually wind up with a broken bill counter/sorter after a couple years.
if you don't get that many bills, you can use just one of those regular run of the mill bill counters for 100 bucks.

to your question,
It's a good idea to do an audit on the cash collected vs what the game say it made. Especially if you have more then one person with a key, its a cash business (easy to steal, a lot of people do). All of that is in the service menu (coin credits/service credits/free credits etc.), you can even hook up a resettable or non-resettable counters pretty easy if you want. Everyone that has a key to my machines I trust implicitly, but I still do it anyway. It can also help you avoid rare mistakes, by putting an amount in the wrong column in excel or whatever is being used to track it all.

(thought the exact same thing, when I read it...damn don't you hate being a smartass sometimes? I know I do, well actually it's more the people around me that put up with me

Since I'm the only one that does major repairs it helps when people can do the smaller stuff, so I don't get called in every time something happens. (ticket jam, ball stuck, bill jam etc..)
The only person that ever touches the cash box is me (at least for now.). It's probably a bad idea but certain customers have my phone number and they text me when stuff goes wrong. For every one thing reported, there are probably another ten that don't. I've had machines in locations where the place doesn't tell you anything. It could be broken for a week and you wouldn't know it, because if the customers say anything the message is never passed on. Which sucks because you loosing revenue every day. If the problem persist, get your machines out unless you go up there on a daily basis.

It's only three others. One is mainly a game tester, one helps with minor repairs, and one doesn't have a key but an operator keycard for the golden tees so he can clean out the buttons /game surfaces on a weekly basis (he is an assistant manager at one location I pay 150 a month to help maintain/clean/report issues). The two with the keys are family one is a brother in law and they don't need the money.
I'd love to have time to just play test all the games thoroughly when I get there, but collections/cleaning take 8-12 hrs sometimes. By the time you get to that point customers are every where & the music is blasting. Lets just say it makes it a little difficult. Guess it depends on how many machines you have at a certain location and what time you are allowed to arrive there. Never rely on the location to clean the surfaces of your machines, or at least do your research first (see if the floors is sticky, crap on the tables etc.)

One other piece of advice, have your location do payouts and keep up with them. It's money back for the location, so customers and staff will be more inclined to report issues if they can get some money back. Just watch out because if you don't, people can take advantage. In the long run it's more money for you in the end, if you deal with the issues as they come before they pile up.