Top 5 Best Food Service Reports

Proper reports help to provide game-changing insights into your food service operation. While most operators check their standard sales reports daily, there can be tons more valuable data lurking in your POS reporting engine that you may not be aware of.

We’re breaking down the top 5 best food service reports that apply across hospitality operations – from senior living communities to restaurants.

If you’re a Volante customer, you can access all these reports (and more!) from your Cloud BackOffice or from the Web Reporting Portal, so log in and get started.

1. Sales Summary Report

This might seem obvious – but a solid sales summary report is your lifeline. As a business, your net sales is showing you how many sales are coming in. If this number consistently says $0.00, you may have a problem.

In its simplest form, it will contain your gross and net sales, void and refund amounts, and taxes.

In its more complex forms, you can put a microscope (also known as a grouping or filter) over the sales summary report and get more detail including:

• ​Profit margins and profitability – based on sales and item costs you have inputted
• ​Item level detail – showing you your net sales broken down by category, group, or individual item
• ​Comparisons across time frames – understanding where your business was a year ago, or six months ago, or even last week compared to this week through the sales summary report can help you understand trends in buyer behaviour

2. Media or Payment Information Report

In tandem with your gross and net sales information, it’s important to know how people are paying for your food and beverage offerings. Media and payment reports will tell you this information. It usually contains:

• ​Cash owed
• ​Credit and debit collected (with breakdown of Visa, Mastercard, etc. depending on whether you have integrated payments or not)
• ​Tips / gratuities
• ​Vouchers or other payment method discounts
• ​Tax information and breakdowns

This report is critical in particular to reconciling your cash deposits and credit card batches. You’ll also want a breakdown by employee if you are utilizing separate cash drawers. That way, you will be able to tie amounts and cashouts directly to employees, reducing theft and helping you to more easily identify discrepancy sources should they arise. From an accounting perspective, there may be additional information that your accountant or business office wants to track, but this high level information will surely help you at a store operations level.

3. Best Sellers & Slow Moving Products

In the highly competitive restaurant industry, it’s more critical than ever to give people what they want. You’re in business for a reason, and you probably have a good idea of what the hot sellers are.

However, generating a report that tells you exactly what people are and are not buying week over week will help you understand and cater your menu effectively. Here are a few reports to look into:

• ​Best sellers by category (appetizers, mains, sides, beverages)
• ​Items with sales below a specific threshold – find out which items you sold less than 5 of over the last few weeks, maybe it’s time to rebrand or switch it up

4. Sales by Time Interval

Understanding your busiest time intervals will help you make better staffing decisions. Break your net sales or head count report into intervals such as daily, hourly, or even down to 10 minutes, and you are able to better understand what times of day people are coming through your venue and staff appropriately.

If you have staff shortages, like many restaurants and food service operations do, adding self-serve kiosks and online ordering can help provide other ways for customers to order without necessarily increasing your lines. These are a great complement to cashier service and can integrate with your existing kitchen equipment to deliver a strong customer experience.

5. Inventory & Stand Sheets Reports

Understanding how much of each item you have on hand helps you prepare and plan for the future. Inventory reports can also show you your labour vs. sales, cost of goods sold, and other important metrics surrounding your productivity and product movements.

If you run a stadium or venue, stand sheet reporting can help you accurately track product movements from concession to concession and track wastage.

With a good reporting engine, you have the world at your fingertips and can make better decisions for your food service operation. If you have questions about reporting insights, how to run the reports above, or if you’re feeling like you aren’t quite getting the reports you need from your current POS, feel free to reach out to us.