Your POS generates hundreds of reports. Most owners look at maybe three of them—and often not the right three. Here's our guide to the reports that actually drive decisions, and the ones that just create noise.
The 7 Reports Worth Your Time
1. Labor Cost vs. Sales by Hour
This is the single most actionable report in your POS. It shows you exactly when you're overstaffed (wasting money) or understaffed (losing sales). Pull this weekly and adjust your schedule accordingly. Target: Labor should be 25-35% of sales for most bars.
2. Product Mix Report
What's selling, what's not. This tells you which items to promote, which to drop, and where your margins are strongest. Review monthly at minimum. Kill the bottom 10% of items—they're eating inventory space and bartender brain power.
3. Server/Bartender Sales Comparison
Not to catch thieves (though it helps)—but to identify who's great at upselling and who needs training. Your top performer's techniques should be taught to everyone else. A 10% improvement in average check across all staff is huge.
4. Void & Comp Report
Track voids and comps by server, by reason, by time. Look for patterns: same bartender comping 3x everyone else? Same item getting voided constantly (menu issue)? Same time period with high voids (shift change chaos)?
5. Hourly Sales by Day of Week
Know your peaks and valleys. This drives everything: staffing, happy hour timing, promotion scheduling. Most owners think they know this intuitively—the data usually surprises them.
6. Payment Type Breakdown
Cash vs. credit vs. tab. High cash percentage might indicate theft risk. High tab percentage tells you pre-auth matters. This also helps you negotiate processing rates—if you're 80% credit, those fees add up fast.
7. Speed of Service Report
Time from order entry to close. If your Friday night average jumps 40%, you've got a bottleneck—maybe the kitchen, maybe the bar, maybe the POS itself. Find it and fix it.
The 5 Reports You Can Ignore
1. Daily Sales Total (by itself)
A single number without context is useless. Was it raining? Was there an event nearby? Compare to the same day last year, or same day last month. Raw totals tell you nothing actionable.
2. Customer Count
Unless you're tracking it accurately (most POS systems guess), this number is noise. Focus on check average and transaction count instead—those are actually measurable.
3. Detailed Tax Reports (for daily review)
Yes, you need these for accounting. No, you don't need to look at them daily. Monthly is fine. Your accountant should handle this.
4. Tip Reports (for management decisions)
Useful for payroll, not for operations. Some owners obsess over tip percentages as a proxy for service quality—but tips are influenced by too many factors to be useful metrics.
5. 50-Page "Executive Summary"
If your POS vendor gives you a 50-page weekly report, they're hiding the signal in noise. You need 5-7 key metrics on one page. Everything else is optional drill-down.
The 15-Minute Weekly Review
Here's our recommended weekly routine:
- Monday morning: Pull labor vs. sales for last week. Adjust this week's schedule.
- Look at: Void/comp report for anomalies. Server comparison for training opportunities.
- Monthly: Product mix review. Kill underperformers, promote winners.
- Quarterly: Deep dive on hourly trends. Rethink your happy hour, staffing model, and promotions.
That's it. 15 minutes a week, an hour a month. Everything else is optional.
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