What is a point of sale report?

Most point of sale systems group reporting into a standard set: a sales summary, a product report, a payment method report, a staff report, and separate reports on discounts, refunds and voids, time, location and stock. Not every system offers every type, and some use different names for the same report.

Point of sale report shows what you recorded as sold. A payment record shows what your customers paid by card. A payout record shows what reached your bank account after fees. Many businesses only spot the difference when the three numbers don't match at the end of day.

These three records are related without being identical. You might record R10,000 in sales for a day, while the payment provider shows R7,500 in card transactions because some customers paid cash. At an illustrative rate of 2% including VAT the fee on those card sales is R150, so the bank deposit that lands in your account will be R7,350.

When you reconcile, match the point of sale sales total against the cash you counted plus the card transactions processed, then match the card transactions against the payout received minus fees. A mismatch at any point is a signal to investigate - it doesn't always turn out to be an error.

Open a report knowing what you want to find, or with a question in mind. Check that the filters match what you're looking for. Compare the number to something real. Otherwise it's just a number with no meaning.

Start with the question

Decide what you want to know before you open anything. "How did we do today?" is too broad. "Which three products made the most revenue this week, and did any of them drop against last week?" gives the report a job.

Check the period and filters

Check the date range, the location, the device and any other filter that is switched on. A report that pulls in returns from the wrong period, or sales from a device you didn't expect, will hand you a total that looks wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with trading.

Compare, and look at what is missing

Look at what is missing as well as what is there. A product that doesn't appear may not have sold. It may also have been rung up as a general amount, under the wrong item, or through a channel this report does not cover. A product missing from the report hasn't necessarily gone unsold.

Trace exceptions

Trace the exceptions by looking at discounts, refunds, voids and payment mismatches. A high refund rate on one product may point to a quality problem. A staff member with an unusually high discount total may need a conversation or a permission review.

Yes, as long as each of those was recorded at the point of sale. To accurately see staff sales, every staff member needs to be signed in under their own name. Similarly, product sales need the right item selected at checkout, hourly and daily breakdowns come from when each sale was put through and branch and device sales need each location or device set up separately in the system.

Some providers provide detailed reports to match staffing to your busy and quiet periods, and the product and stock reports to reorder what sells and cut back what does not. Location reports compare one branch or selling point against another. Always make sure you understand which reports are available to you in your system.

Your product report should rank items by revenue, which would tell you which items contribute most to sales. A cost price is a stock-record field rather than a report setting, and how point of sale systems manage stock and inventory covers where it is held and what it is used for. The difference between the sales price and the cost price would determine how much money an item makes.

Your product report also shows you what is not selling, so you can see which items are taking up shelf space or menu room without contributing, alongside the ones that are.

Most point of sale reports let you set the date range, so you can run the same report for two periods and put the numbers next to each other - one number on its own without a comparison doesn't tell you much.

For example, R5,000 in daily sales means something once you put it next to yesterday, the same day last week, or a target you set. Comparing like-for-like days is especially relevant in any business where a Friday looks nothing like a Tuesday.

If you run your reports the same way every time, you will be able to see whether revenue, transaction count and average sale value are moving in the direction you want. When you are weighing up a new product, a price change, a promotion or a staffing change, the comparison gives you proof of what shifted versus leaving you to guess.

Yes, on systems that record which staff member was signed in when the transaction went through. The staff report attributes sales, transactions, discounts, refunds and voids to the person who processed them. The refund and void report shows the same transactions from the other direction: what was reversed, partially returned or cancelled, how often and for how much.

Each person needs their own sign-in for this to work. Where your staff share one login, every void will be recorded against the same name.

Read your discount, refund and void reports by staff member regularly. Unusual patterns show up first in these reports, telling you what happened and who processed it - these signs all appear before they become expensive.

If a staff member carries an unusually high discount total, they need a conversation or a permissions review. Stopping theft and voids is a permissions question and your POS software is where those controls live.

For where staff access and permissions sit inside the software, read what is point of sale software.

Reconciling here means matching four things: the point of sale total, the cash you counted, the card settlement and the bank deposit.

You pay a percentage on every card payment. Point of sale reports show the gross sale amount rather than the amount after fees, and the net figure appears in the payout record from your payment provider. Rates differ by provider, and Yoco publishes its own on the Yoco pricing page.

Payout timing moves the money out of step with the report. Some providers pay out the next business day and others take longer. A point of sale report for Monday and the bank deposit that lands on Tuesday won't always line up, because the point of sale can include weekend transactions or leave out a batch still in settlement.

South Africa still runs a large cash economy. A point of sale report that covers cash sales as well as card sales gives you the full revenue picture. Reconciling means matching the point of sale cash total against the physical count, and the point of sale card total against your payment provider's settlement.

A payment method report makes end of day quicker, because it splits the total into the cash you should be able to count and the card sales you should be able to match.

Your point of sale records support a VAT return, and the return itself stays your responsibility and your accountant's. Point of sale reports may show totals inclusive or exclusive of VAT, depending on how the system is configured. Under the Value-Added Tax Act (No. 89 of 1991), VAT-registered businesses must account for VAT correctly. The point of sale report can support the calculation. Don't treat a point of sale VAT total as a submission-ready figure without checking it against the tax requirements.

Receipts are a separate obligation. Under the Consumer Protection Act (No. 68 of 2008), you must provide proof of purchase when a customer asks for it.

Most point of sale systems export reports to a spreadsheet file you can send to an accountant, use for tax preparation, or work on further yourself. Check which formats your system offers and confirm the export carries the detail your accountant or bookkeeper needs, line by line and not as one total.

Ask your provider whether the export has to be pulled by hand each month or can be sent on a schedule, because those are two different amounts of admin every month.

A point of sale report shows what was entered at checkout and nothing that happened outside it. It can't:

• Include a sale that was never put through the system.

• Show the right product when the wrong item was selected at checkout.

• Account for cash taken out of the drawer without a recorded transaction.

• Explain why a figure changed, unless the reason was captured in the sale.

• Replace a physical stock count, because the recorded quantity can differ from what is on the shelf.

• Match the bank point of sale exactly, because fees, timing and adjustments change the payout.

• Give you tax advice, even when it shows a VAT-inclusive or VAT-exclusive total.

How consistently your staff ring up each sale at checkout decides how accurate every one of these reports is.

The six that come up most are opening a report only when something feels wrong, trusting a total without checking what produced it, comparing periods that are not alike, blaming the report for data nobody entered, confusing the point of sale total with the bank deposit, and ignoring discounts, refunds and voids.

Looking at the report only when something feels wrong. Opening a report only when something feels wrong means the evidence already spans weeks by the time you look. A short daily or weekly check catches it earlier.

Trusting the total without checking what produced it. Trusting the total without checking what produced it lets a product mix shift, a discount spike or a cash shortfall hide behind a healthy-looking day.

Comparing periods without accounting for differences. Comparing periods without accounting for the differences between them creates false trends. A five-day week against a four-day week, or a month with a public holiday against one without, will differ whatever you did at the counter.

Blaming the report for missing data. Blaming the report for missing data gets you nowhere, because a sale entered as a general amount can't be traced back to a product afterwards. The fix is at checkout.

Confusing the point of sale total with the bank deposit. Confusing the point of sale total with the bank deposit causes unnecessary alarm. They are different records of the same money at different stages.

Ignoring discounts, refunds and voids. Ignoring discounts, refunds and voids leaves out where the margin goes. A report that shows only gross sales hides the adjustments that reduce what you keep.

Reports get more useful when what goes in at the checkout is consistent and you read them on a fixed cycle, rather than waiting until something feels wrong.

1. Set a reporting routine. Decide which report you check daily (sales summary, payment method split), weekly (product performance, staff activity) and monthly (trends, stock, comparisons).

2. Ring up specific products instead of general amounts. The more consistently your staff select the right item at checkout, the more every report is worth to you.

3. Record every sale, cash included. A report that covers only card sales gives you a partial picture.

4. Reconcile regularly. Match the point of sale total, the cash count, the card settlement and the bank deposit at least daily, and investigate any difference while the evidence is fresh.