Finding Needles in Haystacks: Searching Reports in Your POS System

Shifting through lengthy reports searching for one piece of information can be a frustrating time-waster. But your POS system has a powerful tool to help you instantly find the exact data you need among thousands of lines. Let’s explore how to save heaps of time hunting for the critical information in the report.

Our POS Software includes robust search functions that index all text and data in the report. Rather than flipping through the pages, you can type a product name, date, or keyword into the search box.

It will display the matching instance highlighted for you within less than a second. As you can see here, marked with a red arrow, this report they printed was 13,533 pages long. Finding one item can be tricky as there are so many pages. You do not have to search; you get our software search engine to search for you. So I press the search marked with a brown arrow.

Up pops a box shown with a blue arrow. You would typically put in here "Red rose on the heart", but for the sake of showing you the power of this search box, I pressed "heart" and pressed a few times "Find next" till I found the one I was seeking.

Of course, if you know the exact title, this will make searching faster and hide results that are not relevant to you now.

Tailor The Query To Your Needs

Entering more specific search terms will help surface the most relevant entries. In our example, typing "Red rose on the heart" would directly take you to the singular product without dozens of unrelated results about red products or rose items.

You can also filter by various attributes like:

• Date
• Product
• Price
• Sale Amount

Uncovering Hidden Insights In Seconds

Besides eliminating frustration, advanced report search empowers you to unlock hidden insights about your business. Rather than being limited by static reports, you can instantly investigate any detail that crosses your mind.

• What were my top-selling items last Valentine's Day?
• How many gift cards were purchased in December 2021?
• What was the average transaction value for a specific brand last month?

Your answers are waiting at your fingertips!

The key is taking the time to familiarize yourself with the search functions available in your system. A few minutes of experimentation can save you hours over the long run.

Let Your POS System Shoulder The Reporting Burden

Leveraging the built-in tools in your POS solution will help you confidently base decisions on facts rather than gut instinct.

Black Friday will be on 25 November, by which about a third of shoppers will have done their Christmas shopping. Then over the Black Friday week, it is expected that about a quarter of the Christmas shopping will be done. Black Friday sales today are the biggest pre-Christmas event on the Australian retail calendar. So we are looking at over 50%; details are here.

Do you want to see how your shop performs in these periods in 30 seconds? It is easy to find out.

Go to Register reports.

Now pick "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period."

I would suggest doing it twice, firstly in 2019, because we had COVID issues. So pick three weeks, so 18 November 2019 to Black Friday, 29 November 2019, to see what happened in 2019 and use unit sales. Now redo this report for three weeks, so 15 November 2021 to Black Friday 26 November 2021, to see what happened in 2021 and again use unit sales.

These reports must be checked to see what looks interesting and, more importantly, if you have enough stock.

Do it and see how you go.

You only have a little time.

Australia will mark the death of Queen Elizabeth with a public holiday on Thursday, September 22nd 2022. It will be a National Day of Mourning.

She was a remarkable woman who did a great job. An inspiration who, incredibly, was still working at 96 years old!

Like anyone else, I love a day off work, but this unanticipated public holiday is challenging. I had a client who booked a medical appointment well in advance that day, but it was cancelled. As few doctors will open and do not want to pay penalty rates, many more are in the same position. The same is true of many other organisations, debating now whether to stay open or close on that day. The cost of this public holiday for Australia will be in the billions. I wonder if the money could be better spent on a specialised hospital in her name. 

As it is a public holiday, many are now questioning whether it will be worth keeping the business open on this day.

Before you start planning and organising your staff, please research how busy you are likely to be. Look at the last Queen's birthday and a typical Thursday. Here is a video explaining how to do this with your POS System. Please click here.

What you can do in your POS System is set a budget for each department? Now here is a quick way that works well how to calculate such a budget in a typical shop which will take you less than five (5) minutes to do. Of course, no shop is standard, but what do you want for less than five (5) minutes of work.

Divide the shop into nine segments, as I have done above.

Now on the top in black, you will see the scores 3, 2 and 1. This is because, in Australia, people tend to go to the left when they go into a shop, so the left of the shop is more valuable.

Similarly, on the side, you will see the scores 3, 2 and 1 in black. This is because the front of the shop is more valuable than the rear.

Now when you add them up, you will see in red the totals, which is the addition of the top and side scores.

Now, add another 4 to that area segment where most of the front counter is.

If you are setting a budget, you take the total shop budget. Your call whether you do it as profit or sales. Divide by forty (40) and multiple by that segment total, for example: if the shop's budget was $800,000 a year. For the bottom front segment, see green arrow its budget would be $800,000 / 40 x 6 = $120,000

Now there is one caveat: the very front of the shop is used for display and is a decongestion zone where people often walk through without thinking. This part varies so much in different shops that you must make your own value.

The quickest way to proceed is to run a totals report for the past twelve months. Now take your total sales and divide it by 40. Now multiple by its total above for each area segment giving you a figure for each area segment.

Now for each department, look at its area segment and note its figure. If three departments share a segment, divide it by three and use this figure on the report. If a department is in a few areas, add the figures up. Now see how its sales figures compare to these figures. Maybe you have some rearranging to do?

Now here are some key points using this analysis.

1) On the right of the diagram, you will see a thick line in blue. Once people enter your shop, most shoppers will turn to the left. Count the right (4+5+6=15 points) and compare it to the left value (2+3+4= 9 points)—a big difference in score. 

This left side is what we call your power wall, as this is where customers naturally end up. It is where much of a shop's sales occur, so make sure it looks attractive. Style it up. Have your high-margin items there.

You can see why large suppliers, e.g. card companies, want you to put their product on the right side of the shop. They have done this maths too.

2) Why do most retailers prefer the front counter on the left of the shop? The space is less valuable there.

3) Why do many retailers like counters on the back. Well, the area there is less valuable.

Have a go; I am sure you will find these five (5) minutes of work helpful.

While anecdotally, they say that uncertainty around elections causes shoppers to curtail their spending. This is as, during times of uncertainty, we often hear that shoppers are deferring their spending. They are taking a wait-and-see approach. This is true for major items such as real estate and HiFi sets, but in the stuff like food, groceries, petrol, etc., they do not defer. Then once it is over, most of them are happy.,

There have been many studies that show this. I did a data-mining analysis going back to 1982 in Australia with a few of my clients' data and found little. Some minor effect on clothes sales caused by the high ticket items, but nothing else. If anyone wants to see my report, let me know.

The real problem of the elections is that from a business administration, it's a bother. People have to go and vote. This can take some time in some places.

One thing I did notice looking at the polling booths, the one where I usually vote is not open this year, and I have to go to another. So check here first your booth. Put in your desired location. You get a list like this

Then check your closest voting booth.

Data mining in retail

Retail is possibly the most competitive industry. It is a cut-throat competitive market and every edge helps. So retailers struggle to meet customer expectations and sustain their business in an increasingly volatile market. This is where data mining can play a significant role in the retail industry by giving retailers a unique perspective to learn about their customers' behaviour and buying patterns from a computer perspective. 

In many cases, there is no choice as there is nothing but a computer that can tell you the answer to some questions, like if I drop this line, how will it affect the rest of the business. It is relatively easy to estimate how much you make from a line, but it is difficult to say what effect will the loss of this service have on the rest of the shop. Another question might be the effect of the introduction of credit card fees on my business, etc.  

To make it work, though, we need powerful computers. We use this one. It is a beast rated in the top 1% of all computers, and it will often run overnight, doing millions and millions of searches. 

Data mining has proved to be an important tool in identifying helpful information collected over time from your computer's large pool of knowledge.

This is something you will use a lot.

Continuously we get people, e.g. bookkeepers, bankers, etc. asking us for financial figures that are years old. So what people need from their POS Software is to find out what a client or the total clients owed on a nominated date. Say they wanted to know how much your customers owed you on 3/1/2018.

This is often a problem for people with other Point of Sale Systems. They have to keep special backups. Now they have to find the appropriate ones. Then load these backups to get the figures. Once they manage to supply this information as sure as day follows night, they get asked for other figures from other dates. This can be a problem if they have not kept the backups.

Here is a better way for you to do it.

Go to the main menu> Register reports>Customers>Trial Balance.

Now select the date that was, in this case, we want 3/1/2018, so I put this date here.

Now comes out all the details.

If they pick another date for you, no worries put in those dates.

You have saved yourself a lot of work and time.

This tip works in many retail environments, so consider using it in your shop.

What happens is that we all end out with an item that is the last one, and we have decided for some reason not to get it in again. The problem is that this one item often takes up as much room as many items. So we usually have to keep it in that spot until it goes sweating that it will go before it gets too much out of date.

Well, why not make a collection for the last ones left. It does not need to be well presented in the pile as the bargain hunters are willing to work through it. It saves space and often moves the items immediately before we are often stuck with it.

Many industries do this; here is another example used by a card seller.

If you want a list of items in your shop that have only a few left, to get a feel of the size of the problem follow these steps.

Go to register reports > stock titled "Old Stock on hand by Date last received"

I tend to do it in two parts. I check the overall problem in the shop to see the scale of the problem. 

So now, look through the list to get an idea of the extent of the problem.

If you decide that idea is a goer, go back to the report and examine by department to action.

Then let me know how this tip goes for you?

Retail data analysis analyses everything in your business, from sales to stock to your customer data. The AI now makes it better. It is often used to track customer behaviour and traffic, but it can do more for you.

It is not only applicable to large retailers. SMB retailers, like you, can use information collected from your POS systems. Then the significant advantage that you have is that you can move quickly and so react faster.

Retail analytics example

We are using Father's Day as an example so let see how it went for you with this quick and easy method. It will take you less than a minute to do!

Go to Register reports

Now select Sales register > Sales comparison

​

As a first and quick example enter in this:  

Retail analysis report

You will get a very detailed report of what happened on that day for you to review.

Retail data analysis provides the information you need to make informed decisions. This will increase your revenue and profitability.

Note: What does appear to have sold well this Father's Day was decorated Coffee mugs and Whiskey tumblers.