The Beginner’s Guide To Small Business POS Reporting (& 5 Essential Point Of Sale Reports)

Point of sale reporting tools can help you both simplify your business processes and scale. Our guide gives you examples of POS reports and the best vendor options.

• Erica Seppala Erica began writing on small business topics in 2008. She joined Merchant Maverick in 2018 and focuses on loans, accounting, and POS. She is a Certified ProAdvisor for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll. She has been cited in MSN, Reader's Digest, Vox, U.S. News & World Report, and Real Simple. She is a graduate of Limestone University and resides in Greenville, South Carolina.

  Editor

• 
  Mar 3, 2023

  UPDATED

Most of today’s best POS systems are full-on business management solutions that not only allow you to accept and track sales but also offer valuable POS reports. POS reporting tools can simplify managing almost any aspect of your business, from managing inventory to payroll, if you learn how to use your point of sale’s built-in reporting features.

So what types of reports should you look for when choosing the best POS system for your small business? Or, if you already have POS software, which are the most important reports to pay attention to?

In this post, we’ll look at the top standard point of sale report examples and provide our picks for the top POS reporting systems. Keep reading to learn more about POS reporting.

Learn More About Our Top Picks

Company	Summary	Next StepsSummary
Read More	Best for employee reporting Starts at $99/month Extensive reporting, including Insights by Revel mobile reporting app	Best for employee reporting Starts at $99/month Extensive reporting, including Insights by Revel mobile reporting app Visit Site Read More
Read More	Best for payment reporting $0-$60/month Free full-featured POS with strong core reporting	Best for payment reporting $0-$60/month Free full-featured POS with strong core reporting Visit Site Read More
Read More	Best for sales reporting $90-$519/month ($69-$399/month with annual billing) Robust POS boasting numerous sales reports for restaurants of all sizes	Best for sales reporting $90-$519/month ($69-$399/month with annual billing) Robust POS boasting numerous sales reports for restaurants of all sizes Visit Site Read More
Read More	Best POS for restaurant reporting $0-$165+/month Easy-to-use Android-based POS designed specifically for restaurants	Best POS for restaurant reporting $0-$165+/month Easy-to-use Android-based POS designed specifically for restaurants Visit Site Read More
Read More	Best for inventory & customer reporting $89-$168/month ($69-$199/month when billed annually) Retail-specific POS with 100+ built-in & custom reports	Best for inventory & customer reporting $89-$168/month ($69-$199/month when billed annually) Retail-specific POS with 100+ built-in & custom reports Visit Site Read More
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Read more below to learn why we chose these options.

What Is A POS Report?

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, or even employee hours, 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, such as which inventory to buy, when to schedule more employees, or which time of the year leads to the most sales.

How Does POS Reporting Work?

A POS is more than just a fancy cash register: it’s increasingly a hub for your entire small business.

A good POS can deliver reports on essential business functions automatically. Data is collected whenever an employee completes a sale, enters an item into inventory, clocks in for the day, or closes out their register. Various data points are also sent to your POS from online orders, customer feedback, marketing, and other activities.

Some apps even count your store’s foot traffic and send it back to your POS. Truly, there is no aspect of your business that cannot be measured and centralized through your point of sale reporting tools.

POS systems with highly capable reporting tools can collect and organize this data into digestible (and customizable) reports you can access online.

Some legacy POS systems require you to be on-premise and at a POS terminal to generate reports. Modern systems allow you to access your POS reports via the cloud and view them anywhere through a web portal. At the cutting edge of POS reporting technology are mobile apps built specifically for tracking business performance.

While it’s likely these point of sale reporting apps will become a central component, for now, most of them exist to supplement POS web reporting suites — that is to say, they’re not nearly as robust in their scope of data or their customization.

Is One POS Report As Good As The Next?

There are definitely variances in quality when it comes to point of sale reports. Even with the same POS system, there may be different plans that include varying levels of reporting. Advanced reporting, as you might expect, typically only comes with a higher monthly price tier.

It’s also true that some POS reports might be more valuable to certain business owners than others. For example, you may be especially interested in employee reports if you’re not sure if you’re over- or under-staffing.

5 POS Reports You Will Find In A Good POS System

There are five essential categories of reports found in good POS systems. At a minimum, your POS should have at least one report from each category. A good point of sale reporting suite will have several options for each category.

What makes these POS reports so important? They provide snapshots of the main moving parts of your business: sales, payments, employees, inventory, and customers.

1) Sales Reports

Sales are the bread and butter of any business, so the ability to generate detailed sales reports should come standard with any cloud POS. POS sales reports help you determine which items bring you the most profits, which times of the day/week/year are the busiest for your business, and which items are unpopular enough to remove from your shelves.

Here are some key metrics to track on your POS sales report:

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

POS Sales report example: Toast POS for restaurants provides a menu report showing how your menu items affect your sales.

2) Payment Reports

Sales are one thing, but the actual payments determine how much money your business makes…or loses.

POS payment reports help you track cash flow, credit card payments, and inefficiencies that affect your bottom line. Using the information from payment reports, you can help 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)

Using the Clover POS cash log report, you can view the date, time, type, and amount of every cash transaction, as well as which employee handled the cash event and the reason for opening the cash drawer.

3) Employee Reports

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

Not all point of sale reporting suites will have all these features, but many systems will include integrations for third-party software to manage elements such as payroll and scheduling. At the very least, your POS should show sales-related employee activity, tracking each sale to an individual employee, such as:

• Employee time clock/hours worked
• Shift reports
• Employee till counts
• Sales by employee
• Commissions by employee
• Profitability by employee
• *Employee scheduling and payroll

*Less likely to be included in POS software

Revel Systems includes robust employee reports in its POS, including an employee profitability report. This report compares each employee’s wage to their sales to calculate a profit percentage.

4) Inventory Reports

Most POS software includes some elements of inventory asset management software, allowing you to keep your stock volume in line with your sales volume.

The best POS inventory management systems let you generate reports showing your inventory quantities, inventory values, and which items or ingredients you’re running low on. In some cases, your POS might integrate with a third-party inventory software service to provide these reports. 

Here are some good POS inventory reports to look out for:

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

Lightspeed Retail’s inventory summary report shows closing inventory, days covered, revenue, average, and inventory costs.  

5) Customer Reports

If your POS has customer management features, you can monitor the information you need to track repeat customers, generate targeted marketing campaigns (usually using integrated email marketing software), and even create a custom loyalty program. To get the information needed for customer-related reports, your POS must be able to capture customer details at the time of sale.

You will probably need to use separate CRM software for in-depth customer insights and marketing reports. Many POS systems integrate with CRM software. For example, Square POS includes free customer engagement tools that show statistics on customer satisfaction, new vs. returning customers, and customer visit frequency.

For a more complex tool, you can opt into Square Marketing, which syncs perfectly with your Square POS reports. It’s a great example of why using your POS as your centralized hub can be a huge advantage. 

Even if you don’t add on a fancy marketing suite for your POS, here are some standard customer reports your POS should be able to provide:

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

Shopify POS sales by customer report let you see a breakdown of orders by each customer over a period of time.

5 Point Of Sale Reporting Systems For Small Businesses

POS reporting systems should include strong customer, inventory, sales, payment, and employee reports. Custom report options, cloud-based reporting, multilocation support, and mobile reporting options are critical features in a good POS reporting system. Here are our five picks for POS systems that best meet these requirements.

1. Revel Systems: Best For Employee Reports

Revel POS Systems	Visit Site Read our Review

Get Started With Revel POS Systems

Read our in-depth review

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2. Square: Best For Payment Reports

Square POS	Visit Site Read our Review

Get Started With Square POS

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

3. Lightspeed Restaurant: Best For Sales Reports

Lightspeed Restaurant POS	Visit Site Read our Review

Get Started With Lightspeed Restaurant POS

Read our in-depth review

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4. Toast: Best For Restaurant Reports

Toast POS	Visit Site Read our Review

Get Started With Toast POS

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

5. Lightspeed Retail: Best For Inventory & Customer Reports

Lightspeed Retail POS	Visit Site Read our Review

Get Started With Lightspeed Retail POS

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

Why We Don't Recommend These POS Reporting Options

ShopKeep By Lightspeed

ShopKeep previously topped our list for its strong sales reporting — specifically, for its accessible and easy-to-understand reports.

Unfortunately, you’re out of luck if you aren’t a current ShopKeep user. While existing users still have access to this POS and its reporting functions, new users are no longer accepted following ShopKeep’s acquisition by Lightspeed.

If you’re searching for a new POS, you can check out Lightspeed’s other products, including Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed Restaurant.

How Important Are POS Reports To My Business?

POS reports offer views of the current financial state of your business while also providing critical insights for growing your business.

A POS system does come at a price, and it can take some time to find the right system for your business. This is why taking advantage of free trials and demos to test out the software before committing is important. There are also free options, such as Square, that come equipped with basic features and reporting to get you started.

And if none of these POS systems seem to fit the bill? Plenty of other options exist on the market, including industry-specific software and systems. Whether you’re looking for the best POS system for your bar, need to set appointments or perform other functions with the best salon-focused POS system, or need a POS with eCommerce integrations, there’s a POS system out there for your business.

Good luck!

FAQs: Small Business POS Reporting

In Summary: 5 Point Of Sale Reporting Systems For Small Businesses

1. Revel POS Systems:
   • Best for employee reporting
   • Starts at $99/month
   • Extensive reporting, including Insights by Revel mobile reporting app
2. Square POS:
   • Best for payment reporting
   • $0-$60/month
   • Free full-featured POS with strong core reporting
3. Lightspeed Restaurant POS:
   • Best for sales reporting
   • $90-$519/month ($69-$399/month with annual billing)
   • Robust POS boasting numerous sales reports for restaurants of all sizes
4. Toast POS:
   • Best POS for restaurant reporting
   • $0-$165+/month
   • Easy-to-use Android-based POS designed specifically for restaurants
5. Lightspeed Retail POS:
   • Best for inventory & customer reporting
   • $89-$168/month ($69-$199/month when billed annually)
   • Retail-specific POS with 100+ built-in & custom reports

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Erica Seppala

Editor at Merchant Maverick

Erica began writing on small business topics in 2008. She joined Merchant Maverick in 2018 and focuses on loans, accounting, and POS. She is a Certified ProAdvisor for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll. She has been cited in MSN, Reader's Digest, Vox, U.S. News & World Report, and Real Simple. She is a graduate of Limestone University and resides in Greenville, South Carolina.

View Erica Seppala's professional experience on LinkedIn.

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