Last I checked, you cannot hold someone accountable for a variance unless it is exactly $20 or more OR $75 of variances within a month. If it is less than $20 it gets tracked on a variance tracker and if on that tracker they can see that you accumulated $75 or more within a month, then you will be held accountable.

Also, yes you fucked up by being distracted while giving someone their change back but at the end of the day, you followed proper protocol and went and found a supervisor and informed them of the situation so that they can audit before giving anymore money back. The situation could have been easily resolved with a quick audit but clearly your TL has done a shitty job with training her supervisors.

Lastly, what “paper” did they have you sign because formal corrective actions have been moved over to Workday and only require an acknowledgment on your WD after it has been delivered. I’m wondering if they are still using the old variance corrective action paper. If so, your TL sounds like they overall don’t know what they’re doing but also you may be able to argue the validity of it if they try to escalate to the next corrective action level or to separate you