Reports: sales, profit, stock value and discounts in plain words

What reports does EasyTaskr have?

Reports are grouped by the question an owner is really asking, not by the table the data lives in. Open Reports and you see five groups, with a search box at the top.

The Business overview is made of widgets you can arrange in the order you read them. The rest each answer one question well, rather than one huge report answering everything badly.

How do ranked reports work?

Most reports rank something: products by sales, customers by spend, reps by what they sold. Each one has a date range, from today to last year or a custom range, and sales can be filtered to all sales, shop orders or till sales, and by price list. That filter matters when the counter and the reps sell at different prices.

Every ranked report has a Download button that saves a CSV with the raw numbers. Profit by product, for example, downloads with revenue before discount, the discount, profit before discount, margin, and flags for lines sold at a loss or with the cost price missing.

What do the money reports show?

Profit by product shows what each product actually earned after discounts. It flags anything sold at a loss and anything with no cost price, because a missing cost makes a product look like pure profit.

Discount insights shows the discount given over the period and what share of the full price that was. If you set a discount limit, it shows the sales that went over it. You can see discounts by product, by the person who keyed them, and the customers who got the most, down to every discounted sale. An Explain this in plain English option writes a short summary when you ask, and reminds you to check the figures yourself.

Daily profit and takings takes each day's takings and subtracts labour and expenses, with how customers paid: cash, card or on credit. Payments and debt shows what has come in and what is still owed.

What do the stock reports show?

Stock value shows what your stock is worth at cost and at selling price, before VAT, with the potential profit and margin by category. A separate section lists products priced below cost, with what you would lose if all of that stock sold at that price.

Slow movers and dead stock lists what is sitting still. What to order again lists what is running low. Together they answer the question most small businesses get wrong: which stock is tying up cash, and which is about to run out.

Where do I find a single sale?

In Sales history, not in reports. It lists every sale, filtered to all sales, till sales or orders, with a search box and a date range. It also shows net till sales with the amounts refunded and voided, which is the first place to look when a customer queries a receipt or the drawer does not match. Reports tell you about the pattern; sales history shows you each sale behind it.

Step by step: a weekly review in fifteen minutes

1. Open Reports and choose Sales over time; set the range to the last 7 days.
2. Compare this week with last week, and note any day that stands out.
3. Open Product sales for the same week and check the top ten are all in stock.
4. Open Profit by product and sort by margin; look at anything flagged as sold at a loss.
5. Open Discount insights and check who gave the most discount and whether any sale went over your limit.
6. Open Customer sales to see whether a big customer bought less than usual.
7. Open Payments and debt and note who owes the most.
8. Open Slow movers and dead stock and pick two products to offer or stop buying.
9. Press Download on any report your accountant or partner needs.
10. Write down one action for the week, and check it next Monday.

How do discounts change profit?

More than the discount rate suggests. A worked example: a product costs 6.00 and sells for 8.00, a profit of 2.00 and a margin of 25%. A 10% discount takes the price to 7.20, and profit falls to 1.20. The discount was 10% of the price, but it took 40% of the profit. To earn the same total profit at the lower price you need to sell about 1.67 times as many. That is the sum Discount insights helps you keep an eye on. Our markup vs margin guide explains the maths, and the calculator works it out for any product.

What arrives by email?

If you switch them on in the emails part of settings, summaries arrive without opening the app. The daily summary comes each morning with yesterday's total sales and orders, what is still owed to you, overdue invoices and products running low. The weekly summary arrives on Monday morning and covers the previous seven days. Owners who do not sit at a desk often find the daily email is the only report they read every day, which is exactly why it carries the money owed and the stock running low, not only the sales.

What should I set up first?

Fill in cost prices on every product; without them profit and stock value reports cannot be right. Set a discount limit so Discount insights can flag sales over it. Switch on the daily email for whoever opens up. Then pick one fixed time a week for the review above. For what the stock figures mean for your accounts, read the stock valuation guide.