As you describe things, the steps to handle such transactions in Manager seem quite simple.
When a member of the community comes to you for cash, go into the Cash Accounts tab and Transfer Money to your bank account, describing the transaction and listing the citizen as the payee in the Description field. You should probably leave the transfer as Uncleared until it shows up on your bank statement.
This is, in effect, like making an interest-free loan from your business to the citizen, creating an obligation for the citizen to pay you back, and then immediately receiving the payback. In a classical accounting sense, the transaction creates a momentary asset for the business. If Manager did not have the Transfer Money feature, you would need to do this in two steps, using an asset account named something like Cash-out Payments. These two hypothetical steps would be equivalent to:
- Debit:
Cash-out Payments - Credit:
Cash on hand
and then:
- Debit:
Bank account - Credit:
Cash-out Payments
The net result would be a zero balance in the Cash-out Payments account, with both the outgoing and incoming transactions properly reflected in the bank/cash accounts. But since Manager does have the Transfer Money feature, you can do it in one transaction and do not need to create that temporary asset account.
The risk you are taking is that the citizen’s card transaction might not go through, but presumably that risk is transferred to your card processor when you run the card.
Of course, as you do this, you need to manage your physical cash flow. You might potentially need to replenish your cash account, but I suspect you have that under control. Whenever you take in cash, that needs to be properly recorded into the cash account.
Having said all that, I don’t know what your card processor might think of “no sale” transactions. But that is an issue outside the scope of Manager.