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Introduction to Reporting

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Integrated Services, Inc. offers many reports through LubeSoft®, the point-of-sale product that provides total management for your lube shop. Because there are over 80 reports, a great deal of information is available. The report articles will help you take full advantage of all the reports in your POS system.

Accurate reporting is a vital part of maintaining a healthy and growing business, so your system reports are indispensable for planning, purchasing, and staffing. For example, reports in your system can:

  • Provide important statistical and financial information about the overall performance of your business.
  • Help in managing the productivity of employees.
  • Aid in controlling inventory.
  • Be given to customers to help build loyalty and repeat business.

Using the Reports Articles

The Reports articles are designed for two purposes.

  • As an overview to explain the basics of how reports are created in your system and how you can print a report to provide information when you need it.
  • As a reference guide for each report available in LubeSoft®. For each report, there is an article that explains where the report information comes from, how calculations are done, how to create the report, and how it can help you run your business.

These articles contain both reports and lists. Although they may sound similar, reports and lists contain different types of information.

  • A list is simply a collection of information you have entered in your system. No calculations have been made. For example, the Coupon/Discount List contains all the coupons and discounts you have entered.
  • A report is an analysis tool that does calculations based on the information you entered. For example, the Coupon/Discount Analysis Report analyzes how your customers used their coupon or discount.
  • A spreadsheet is a type of report. The Employee Overtime Spreadsheet is a spreadsheet that analyzes your employees’ labor hours.

Quick Access to the Information You Need

We have designed these articles to help you find report information quickly. The following is a list of features you can use to locate information immediately.

  • There is an article for every report in LubeSoft® with detailed information for that report, including a sample report and instructions for printing. You can search by report name to locate a specific report.
Note: While the samples in the articles represent typical reports, there may be minor differences between the sample reports and yours due to differences in setup or operations. You should make sure your reports are set up to print the information that is most useful to you.
  • Understanding Your POS Reports is an article that allows you to choose an aspect of operations for which you need information. By glancing through that group of related reports, you can be directed to one that suits your specific need.

Go to the LubeSoft Reports for an alphabetical list of all the available reports.

Creating Reports in LubeSoft®

In LubeSoft® you usually have control over how and when a report is created, as well as how much information it contains. This section explains the options that allow you to create and print reports to meet your needs. In general, you print reports from a Report Control Screen. This screen allows you to select options (such as the range of dates) to get the report you want. From the Report Control Screen, you have the opportunity to create a report:

  • Printed out on paper.
  • Displayed on your screen.
  • In a disk file. (This allows you to save the report on your hard drive.)

For a detailed description of a typical Report Control Screen, see the Report Control Screens article.

Another way in which your system provides flexibility is by allowing you to set up a schedule of reports to print during closing processes. Selected reports can be designated on the Set Up Closing Processes screen to print automatically on a regular basis during the close. (See the Setting Up Closing Processes article for more information on this procedure.)

Note: Stores that are part of an Office Information Link (O.I.L.™) network can share reports with a central office. For these stores, your system prints and transmits daily those reports that you specify in the Setup O.I.L. Reports screen. Refer to the article Setting Up O.I.L. Reports for more information.

The Center Control File and Report Setups

For some reports, the information that prints is partly determined by setups in the Center Control File (1-6-1-1) and other places in your system. The report articles include detailed information about these setups. The Center Control File also contains the settings that determine how long information is kept in your system. This limits how far back you can recall information for all of your reports. You can set up different periods to retain history for different types of information such as transaction information, statistics, etc.

Updating Historical Information for the Inventory Reports

Many of the reports that contain information about your inventory rely on historical information. This is information that has been entered into the history files during an inventory update. Information for the current day’s operations may not be included in calculations on such reports until the daily close is complete or until you run a manual inventory update. To get up-to-date information in the middle of the day, you should run a manual update before you print an inventory report. This is done using the Update Inventory function (1-7-1-4).

Reindexing Files

You may notice when you print certain reports that your system automatically reindexes files before printing the report. The reindexing process ensures that the information in your system is properly organized to create accurate reports. This process may sometimes take quite a while but is essential for system maintenance and correct reporting. See the article Information About Reindexing.