The Small Business Guide To POS Reporting

POS reporting is one of the most important features of the best POS systems for small businesses.

The most essential POS reports for your small business are:

• Sales
• Payment
• Employee
• Inventory
• Customer

What Is POS Reporting?

A POS report is a collection of data your point of sale system gathers. Because modern POS systems can track item sales, credit card transactions, employee hours, and more, they can also generate a variety of reports on a weekly, daily, or monthly basis.

The biggest benefit to POS reporting tools is the ability to show trends, such as popular items or busiest times, that can feed into making crucial business decisions like what inventory to buy, when to schedule more employees, or when to push sales to make up for a natural annual decline.

How Does POS Reporting Work?

At this point, POS systems have grown far beyond a simple solution for an outdated cash register.

No longer does your POS system handle only in-person sales. Your POS, whether locally installed or cloud-based, can be a hub for every aspect of your small business.

A good POS system will deliver reports based on data it has collected automatically each day. This data includes (but is not limited to) sales, inventory, employee time punches, and register balances. Your POS can also collect information from online orders, customer reviews, marketing results, and more.

There are even some POS systems that integrate with technology that allows you to count your store’s foot traffic. There’s almost no aspect of your business that can’t be measured and turned into a report.

POS reports can be accessed via the POS terminal, a web portal, and/or a dedicated mobile app, depending on the POS system.

Are Some POS Reports Better Than Others?

Like anything in the world, one POS report is going to be better for some small business owners than another. It depends on personal preference.

That being said, some standard features will make one POS report better than the next. Readability, the complexity of the data, and the way a POS report is accessed (terminal, portal, app, etc.) will all impact a user’s satisfaction.

If a report has too much granular information and is displayed on a small screen with a complicated UI, it’s going to be useless to most business owners.

You may also find certain POS reports more useful than others based on your unique business needs.

For example, suppose you’re especially worried about the cost of labor. In that case, employee time reports are going to be more important to you than a report of the social media metrics from a marketing campaign.

5 Essential POS Reports

Now that you know more about POS reporting, we can discuss the 5 most important point of sales reports.

Sales Reports

As an owner of a business, you know how important sales are, so any POS system should come standard with detailed sales reports.

These reports will help you understand your profits, peak times, and where you could be losing money. Here are some key metrics your POS sales report should track:

• Best/worst-selling items
• Sales activity by day/date range
• Sales by employee/product/department
• Sales by menu item
• Most commonly returned items
• Gross profits for week, month, year, etc.
• Online and/or mobile sales

Toast POS menu report

Payment Reports

While sales are important, the actual payments determine your profit at the end of the day.

Payment reports help you keep track of cash flow, credit card payments, and inefficiencies that can impact your business.

These reports can help you prevent employee theft and errors, determine how your customers prefer to pay, and figure out how many sales are discounted or sold at full price. Here are some things you should be able to track in your POS payment reports:

• Cash events
• Taxes paid
• Tips and gratuities
• Voided sales
• Refunds
• Discounts
• Payments by payment method (credit card, gift card, check, mobile, etc.)
• Employee payouts (if, for example, waitstaff takes payouts at the end of every shift)

Clover payment report

Employee Reports

They say your business is only as good as the people who work for you, and we couldn’t agree more.

That said, it can be difficult to determine an employee’s precise value to your business and the areas in which they need further training. Instead of hovering over your employees’ shoulders at all times (which we don’t recommend), you can use POS employee reports to keep track of your employees and monitor their sales.

While not all POS systems will offer employee management tools, they usually have integrations with apps or software that offer these features. Here are some important employee reports you should look for in a POS system:

• Employee time clock/hours worked
• Shift reports
• Employee till counts
• Employee sales report
• Employee commission report
• Employee profitability report
• Employee scheduling and payroll

Revel Systems employee profitability report

Inventory Reports

Inventory management software, often included or integrated with POS systems, allows you to keep stock and sales volume equal.

As a business owner, it’s crucial that you can generate reports showing your inventory quantities, values, and which items or ingredients you’re running low on. Here are some good POS inventory reports to look out for:

• Inventory reorder report
• Inventory value report
• Raw ingredient report (for restaurants)
• Real-time inventory tracking report

Lightspeed Retail Inventory Summary Report

Customer Reports

POS customer management features can allow you to track repeat customers, generate targeted marketing campaigns, and create a custom loyalty program using data captured at the time of sale.

If you want more in-depth insights into your customers and marketing reports, you’ll need to use a separate CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Most POS systems integrate with some kind of CRM software or allow you to access the API to build a custom integration.

Here are some standard customer reports your POS should be able to provide even without a CRM integration:

• Total sales by customer
• Top customers
• Purchase and return histories per customer
• Sortable database of customer profiles (with name, email address, purchase history, account balances, etc.)

Shopify POS sales by customer report

How To Choose The Right POS System

It can take some time to find the perfect POS system for your small business. You’ll need to consider the features you need, how much a POS system costs, hardware options, and more to be sure you’re making the right choice.

Check out our article on choosing a POS system to learn more!

The Bottom Line On POS Reporting

At this point, most POS systems offer some kind of basic reporting. If you find one that doesn’t, it might not be a good choice. Reporting is crucial for business owners to stay up-to-date with their business, employees, and customers and keep everything running smoothly.

We understand that some industries need more specific features along with great reporting. Whether you need a POS system for your bar or the ability to set appointments on your POS for service-based businesses, there is a perfect fit for you.

Don’t settle for a second-rate POS system just because it has some of the features you want. Find the unique and customizable solution that’s perfect for you, your business, your employees, and your customers and has all the features you need.

Happy reporting!