Now that the holiday season is over it is time for rest and reflection. CSM V3 offers some quick and easy reports to help you understand what your big sellers were and what quantities of inventory you will need to have on hand for the next season. You can review these reports any time, but during the typical post-holiday lull may be a good time to gather the information, make notes on recommendations while it’s fresh in your mind and tuck them away until next summer when you are gearing up for the next crunch.
Recommended Reports 
- Sales Report Detail – by Item Description
- Sales by Day
- Sales – Compare Period
- Average Sales per Hour
- Cost of Goods
- Prepaid Received
- Employee Hours
- All of the CSM reports can be exported into an MS Office format such as Excel to help you structure the reports to fit your business needs.
- Sales Report – By Item
- This report is found under Reports | Sales. Sorting the report by ‘Item Description’ allows you to see how many of each item was sold during the designated date range. Showing the ‘Detail’ will allow you to see what modifiers were included in the purchases. This will help give you a realistic picture of how well your seasonal items sold, such as an Eggnog Latte or Gingerbread Cookie so you can forecast inventory ordering needs for the next year.
- Sales by Day
- This report is found under Reports | Sales. This report shows what items sold on what days within the specified date range. This can help you plan daily/weekly specials, determine when items stop selling and help you analyze when the best days are to promote specific items. For example if the Pumpkin Bread isn’t selling on the weekends you can plan to lower your ordering needs on those days next year or plan a promotion to upsell the Pumpkin Bread during those lull days.
- Sales – Compare Period
- This report is found under Reports | Sales. This is a great report to review your sales totals between 2 designated ranges. For example you can review sales from December 2014 and December 2015 to determine product and labor needs and forecast the next year.
- Average Sales per Hour
- This report is found under Reports | Sales. This report will help you analyze what times of day are the busiest so you can plan your staffing needs and determine sales opportunities during the next year. Often times during the crunch of the season it can seem busier than it really is and this report can help you determine where staff expediting can best be implemented. It will also help give you insight on store hour needs and times of day you can use to promote products or host special events.
- Cost of Goods
- This report is found under Reports | Inventory. This report is great to show menu mix, percentage of sales and margins to help you understand what is selling and what is not within a given date range. It also will give you a good indication of what items are your real money makers to help you adjust pricing and determine menu needs for the following year.
- Prepaid Received
- This report is found under Reports | Register. Gift Cards are often sold in their highest numbers during the last part of the year. This report will show you how many were sold during the designated date range as well as your outstanding liability. This will help you understand the physical card count needed for next year’s season as well as analyze potential Gift Card sales opportunities in the following year.
- Employee Hours
- This report is found under Reports | Employee. It could be argued there is no greater expense than labor. This report will help you determine labor costs during the designated date range. This will help you plan your labor needs to match against your sales forecast for the next year.
It’s never to early to start setting yourself up for success for the busy holiday season. With all your shop’s data at your finger tips, you have everything you need to make 2016’s holiday season your strongest yet.