Reports answer three questions
How much did I sell? What part of that is actually mine? What should I do differently next week? That's the whole game. You don't need an accounting class, you need to know which number answers which question.
Open the Reports tile (View sales and analytics) and start with the Sales Report. Pick a period at the top: Today for the daily pulse, Week or Month for the trend, Custom when your accountant asks for a specific range.
The numbers, translated
- Gross Sales, everything you rang up: items plus add-ons, before any discounts. The "how busy was I" number.
- Net Sales, gross minus the discounts you gave. The honest "what did I actually sell" number. If gross and net are drifting apart, your discounts are doing more work than you think.
- Average Order, net divided by orders. The single best lever for a small business: raising this by one drink or one add-on beats chasing new customers all week.
- Tax Collected, not your money. You're holding it for the state. Seeing it as its own line is what keeps it from feeling like profit.
- Tips Collected, also not your money; it belongs to staff. Its own line for the same reason.
- Refunds & Voids, the leak detector. A few is normal life; a climbing line is a product, process, or person to look at.
Who's buying
Customer Analysis splits your crowd three ways: Total Customers, Registered Customers (people on your books, reachable again with announcements and rewards), and Walk-in Customers (anonymous sales you can't follow up on). For a small business, moving people from the walk-in column to the registered column IS the growth work, every registered customer is a future repeat sale you can actually invite back.
Sales Report vs. Batch Reports
Two different tools. The Sales Report is the rangefinder, any period, analytics, trends. Batch Reports are the day-close ledger, each register day recorded as it settled, tender by tender. Use batches to check "did Tuesday close right?"; use the sales report to ask "how's the month going?"
Send it to the accountant
Two export buttons: Sales Report CSV is the spreadsheet your accountant actually wants; Sales Report PDF is the readable version for humans. Run the period first, exporting needs a generated report.
If something's off
- "No sales in the selected period." The period picker is honest. Widen the range, and remember today's sales settle into batch history at day close.
- Gross looks great, bank deposit looks small. Gross isn't take-home: subtract discounts (see net), tax (the state's), tips (staff's), and processing fees. The payouts guide walks the deposit math.
- Numbers feel wrong. Check the period first, comparing this Tuesday to last full week is the classic self-inflicted scare.