petty cash reconciliation is a formal review of petty cash records. The intent of this activity is to see if there have been any undocumented disbursements. Such disbursements are a common problem in petty cash, where there is a high risk of fraud. Also, since most petty cash custodians are not trained as accountants, they may incorrectly record disbursements. For these reasons, a petty cash reconciliation should be conducted at regular intervals.

The review can be treated as an audit, which means not warning the petty cash custodian of the arrival of the reviewer.