What Is A Point-Of-Sale Report? (2024 Guide)

Put simply, a point-of-sale report is a collection of data gathered from your point-of-sale system. Every time you make a sale, the POS system stores data about the transaction, such as which employee was involved, who the customer was and what items were sold.

After curating all this data, the system eventually outputs it as an easy-to-digest report that quickly shows you the progress of your business.

What a Point-of-Sale Report Includes

What your point-of-sale report includes will vary depending on your point-of-sale system. Some might track more information than others. Here are the basics most POS systems should include:

As you may have already guessed, a POS report is an invaluable resource for your business. There are plenty of ways you can use it to optimize sales, inventory, customer management and much more. Here are some of our top suggestions for utilizing your point-of-sale report:

• Find your best-selling products: With this knowledge, you can order more of this product to keep it in stock—as well as make it easier to find in your store by creating a display around it. You might also find similar or adjacent products customers would also like. For example, if your kitchen store sells hundreds of air fryers each month, perhaps stocking some air fryer cookbooks or parchment liners could boost additional sales.
• Find your worst-selling products: Are you only selling one or two of a certain product each month? If so, you might want to cut this from your inventory. You’ll also have a better idea of what similar products to avoid selling. As an example, if your kitchen store only sells one macaron kit a month, that probably indicates there won’t be demand for macaron silicone baking mats either.
• Find your biggest money makers: Often, the product that sells the most isn’t your biggest moneymaker. Instead, it may be a higher-value product that only sells occasionally. A POS report can help you track revenue vs. number of items sold so you can see what products are most valuable to your store.
• Discover most popular payment methods: If you’re finding that 90% of your customers pay with credit cards, this might convince you to enact a card processing fee to ensure you’re not losing too much profit. On the flip side, if most of your customers pay cash, perhaps you’ll want to stock more small bills to ensure you always have enough change on hand.
• Calculate employee commissions or tips: If your store runs on commissions, your point-of-sale report will be crucial for determining how much you owe an employee. It allows you to sort sales and gives you a total for each employee, making calculating commissions a breeze. You can also divide up tips based on the number of sales or percentage of sales each employee made.
• Track and reorder your inventory: Maybe you know you ordered a certain item last month… but how much do you have left at this point? A point-of-sale report can show you your stock level easily so that you know when it’s time to reorder—reducing the out-of-stock conundrum that might turn customers away. If you’re using a separate inventory management system, many can connect to your POS system for seamless integration.
• See which products are causing problems: If your POS report shows that a certain brand or type of item is being returned frequently, this might be an indication to stop carrying that item. You might also try harder to make your customers aware of any potential issues beforehand. For example, if it’s a clothing item that’s frequently being returned because of fit issues, you might want to install a sign that says, “Runs small!” This gives customers a head’s up to choose a different size than normal.
• Reward your top customers: Chances are, you probably have dedicated customers that keep returning and spending at your store. Why not reward them? With a POS report, you can often identify your VIPs. If your POS system allows you to collect phone numbers or emails, offering them discounts via email or text is simple.
• Tempt your first-time customers into returning: Your POS report can also help you identify first-time customers who haven’t returned in a while. Maybe they liked your store but just forgot about it. Sending them a coupon code could be just what inspires them to get back in the door. Check out our other customer retention strategies to get more ideas.

Modern POS systems are a small business’s lifeline for many reasons, one of which is their ability to produce POS reports. Navigating a POS report might be tricky at first since there’s so much information to parse through. But once you learn which categories are most important for your individual business, you’ll find these reports are a true treasure trove.