Form 8300, in plain English

This is a practical orientation, not legal advice — confirm your program with your attorney or accountant.

Jewelry is one of the few retail trades where a normal Saturday can trigger a federal filing. If a customer pays you more than $10,000 in cash — in one sale or in related payments — you generally must file Form 8300 within 15 days, keep the record for five years, and notify the customer in writing by the following January 31.

The parts that catch stores off guard

• “Cash” is bigger than bills. Cashier’s checks, money orders, and traveler’s checks of $10,000 or less can count as cash when received for a covered sale.
• Related transactions stack. A $6,000 deposit Tuesday and $5,500 balance Friday on the same ring is one reportable event, not two safe ones.
• “Helping” a customer stay under the line is the crime. Splitting a payment to avoid the report is structuring — for them and for you. The right answer to “can we do it in two payments so there’s no paperwork?” is no, and the request itself may be reportable as suspicious.
• The AML program is also yours. Dealers in precious metals, stones, and jewels above the thresholds must maintain an anti-money-laundering program under the USA PATRIOT Act — written, with a designated officer, training, and independent review.

Making it a side effect, not a project

None of this is hard on a good day. It’s hard on a busy day — which is exactly when an $11,400 cash sale walks in. The fix is structural:

1. The counter watches cumulative cash per customer, not per receipt.
2. The threshold trips a workflow, not a memory.
3. Split-payment patterns get flagged automatically.
4. Every check, filing, and notification lands in an audit log you can hand over.

Gemercel ships this as the Protect suite — 8300 thresholds, structuring detection, watchlist screening, and an append-only audit trail, running as a side effect of ringing the sale. Put your store on the list.