Reporting guides
Retail reporting guides for owners who need better visibility
Reports should help an owner make a decision, not bury one in numbers. These guides are about which handful are worth reviewing, how often, and what to do when one of them looks wrong.
Written for owners and managers, not for analysts.
Which retail reports are actually worth reviewing?
A small number, on a schedule. Sales by item and department tells you what is happening; margin tells you whether it is worth having; inventory tells you what it is costing to hold; employee and exception reports tell you where the unusual activity is. A store usually has access to far more reports than it reviews, and a report nobody reads is the same as a report nobody has.
The other half of the answer is cadence. A report reviewed weekly catches a problem while it is small. The same report read once a year is a history lesson.
- A few reports, reviewed oftenA report nobody reads is the same as one nobody has.
- Margin, not just salesThe busiest line is often the thinnest.
- Exceptions are where loss showsRefunds, voids, discounts and no-sales leave a trace.
- A report should prompt an actionIf nothing changes because of it, it is decoration.
Which reports exist and what they contain depends on the POS and how it is set up. These guides describe what to look for, not what any particular screen shows.
The reports
What the reporting guides cover
Six families of report, and what each one is for.
Sales reports
ReportingBy item, department, category, employee, vendor, location and date range. The baseline everything else is compared against.
Margin reports
Where cost, price and promotion have drifted apart, by product, department or vendor.
Inventory reports
Inventory guidesItem movement, dead stock, low stock and variance.
Employee reports
Cashier sales, transaction counts, refunds, voids and discounts, compared across the team.
Department reports
Which parts of the store are growing, slowing or quietly losing margin.
Exception reports
Cash managementUnusual refunds, voids, discounts, no-sales and adjustments — the ones worth a question.
Where retail reporting goes wrong
-
Sales are known and margin is not
The store grows revenue on its thinnest lines and wonders where the money went.
Review margin beside sales, by department and by vendor, so the two are never read apart.
Reporting -
Nothing is reviewed on a schedule
Problems are found when they are large, which is also when they are expensive.
A short weekly review of a fixed set beats an occasional deep dive.
Knowledge center -
Exception activity is never looked at
Refunds, voids and no-sales are where a lot of loss hides, and nobody is asking.
Review exceptions deliberately, and put permissions behind the actions that generate them.
Cash management -
Multiple locations cannot be compared
Each store reports its own way and head office cannot tell a real difference from a formatting one.
Consistent item codes and departments across branches, which is a setup decision rather than a reporting one.
Item file setup -
The reports are right and nobody acts on them
The reporting becomes a ritual, and the next problem is missed for the same reason as the last.
Each report in the weekly set should have an owner and a question it answers. If it has neither, drop it.
Support and training
Reporting questions
Which reports should an owner review weekly?
Sales and margin by department, inventory movement including low and dead stock, and an exception review. That set is enough to notice what moved in a week.
Why do margin reports matter more than sales?
Because sales tell you what is busy and margin tells you what is worth being busy. A store can be surprised by which of its best sellers earn least.
Can POS reports help with inventory control?
Yes — item movement, variance, dead stock and low stock are the reports that turn a count into a decision.
What is an exception report?
A view of the unusual: refunds, voids, discounts, no-sales and manual adjustments. Not an accusation, a place to ask a question.
How do we compare several stores fairly?
By making them describe products the same way first. Consistent items and departments are what makes multi-store reporting mean anything.
Can BizTracker help set up reporting?
Yes. Deciding the weekly set, who owns each report and what triggers an action is part of training rather than an extra.
Talk to us about what you cannot currently see
Tell us which question about the store you cannot answer today. That is usually a faster way in than a list of reports.