The Sales by Category Report provides inventory sales and profit information. The summary version reports monthly sales of individual items, including the following:
These figures are given as totals for each month or for the dates of the month included on the report. For example, if you request the report for the last two weeks of a given month, that month’s summary includes data for those two weeks. The most important information on this report is found in the Margin% column, which allows you to determine whether an item is making enough profit. Items are listed by category, and totals are provided for each category as well as individual items. The last line sums up the total cost of goods, sales amount and profit margin for all items on the report. A detailed report is available to track sales on a daily as well as a monthly basis.
| Note: | This report includes those items set up as parts (P) or motor oil (L) on the Set Up Inventory Items screen (1-7-5-1). Job Items (J) are not included on this report. For sales statistics on Job Items, you should set up those categories or items to print on statistics reports. |
Use the following steps to set up and submit a Sales by Category Report:
| Field | Definition | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Enter the particular category if you want to limit the information on the report. Leave blank to print all categories. | ||
| Entry Date | Type a date or a range of dates. Leave blank for all. | ||
| Item Number | Enter the item number or range of item numbers. Leave blank for all. | ||
| Print Time on Report | Printing the time helps you identify the most current report when the same report is printed more than once during a day. This field defaults to Y to print the time on the report. If you do not want the time to print on a report, type N. We recommend that you always print the time on a report. | ||
| Summary Only | This field appears for reports with both detailed and summary versions. Enter Y to print the summary report, which has a total for each item by date range. If you choose detailed, you receive a total for each item by day. | ||
| Duplex | This field appears for terminals that have report type 2 enabled in the Set Up Printer Controls screen. Duplex mode enables printing on both sides of the paper.
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| Number of Printed Lines per Page | This value tells the computer how many lines to print on each page of the report. A typical 11-inch page can contain up to 66 lines, but this field defaults to 60 to allow three-line margins at the top and bottom of the page.
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| Total Number of Lines per Page | This field indicates the length of the paper in the printer. A typical 11-inch page contains 66 lines. Your system interprets a 0 or 66 in this field to mean that standard 11-inch paper is loaded in the printer. Because a 66 causes a form feed to take more time, accepting the default, 0, is recommended. | ||
| Print Report To | This field tells the computer where to send the report. The following list contains the different selections available for this field.
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| Command Line Options | The line at the bottom of the screen contains commands to print the report and to save or change the report settings.
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You can also set up this report on the Set Up Closing Processes screen (1-6-3) to print automatically as part of closing processes.
| Callout | Item | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date Range | Range of dates for the report information. |
| 2 | Location | Location. This code identifies the location or profit center (such as a lube shop or car wash). |
| 3 | Item # | Identification number of the inventory item. |
| 4 | Description | Description of the inventory item. |
| 5 | Sales Quantity | Quantity of the item sold during the date range. |
| 6 | Sales Cost | Amount the sales quantity of the item cost your store. This amount is determined by the cost at which you received the items and the costing method you use (LIFO, FIFO, average, or standard). |
| 7 | Sales Amount | Total sales amount for the item.
Sales Amount = Price * Quantity Sold |
| 8 | Margin% | Profit margin for the item, expressed as a percentage of the Sales Amount.
Margin% = [(Sales Amount – Sales Cost) ÷ Sales Amount] * 100 |
| 9 | Category | Category of items reported. |
| 10 | Category Total | Number of the month during which the sales occurred. (For example, a 9 in this field indicates that the sales were in September.) Also, totals for the dates shown in that month. |
| 11 | Location Totals | Totals for the category. |
| 12 | Date Range | Totals of cost, sales and average profit margin for the location. |
This report helps you evaluate inventory sales because it allows you to monitor how both categories and individual items perform. For example, you can find out whether a category or item brings in enough profit, or identify strong profit-makers to increase sales in those areas. This report is generally printed on a monthly or quarterly basis. If you want information on daily sales, use the detailed version of this report.
If you decide to offer an employee incentive program to boost sales of a specific item or category, you can track sales by printing this report regularly. The Statistics Report for the same period also reports a summary of sales for each category. Other related reports include the History by Type Reports, History by Item Reports, and Inventory Usage Reports.
