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Reading a report

The reports answer narrower questions than Overview or Insights, and they mostly answer them for a date range you choose.

What is there

Report The question
Day end summary What did a trading day come to?
Sales, day-wise How did takings move across a run of days?
Item-wise sales What sold, and how much of it?
Captain sales How much went through each member of floor staff?
Complimentary / no-charge What was given away, and under what reason?
Stock audit What has happened to stock over a period?

Three things to check before reading any of them

The date range. Every report is for a period, and every figure changes when the period does. Two reports disagreeing is usually two ranges disagreeing.

Whether the range is business dates or calendar dates. A restaurant's trading day is not a calendar day, so a late service belongs to the evening it started in. See Takings are showing on the wrong day.

The outlet, where you have more than one.

What a report is not

A report is a read of what was recorded. It does not change anything, and it cannot be more correct than what was entered — a sale recorded under the wrong reason appears under that reason here.

For figures that must balance, use Books. Reports answer operational questions; the statements are what prove the money. See Statements.

Captain sales, read carefully

Sales through a person are not that person's performance. Who was on which section, which tables were busy and who covered a break all move that number. It answers "where did the money come through", which is a useful question, and not "who is good at their job".