How to Track Sales and Employee Performance in Square POS

If you’re running a restaurant, you know that keeping tabs on sales trends and employee performance is crucial for growth and efficiency. Square POS offers a suite of reporting tools to help you stay on top of these metrics. Let’s dive into the key features and steps for tracking both sales and employee performance effectively.

1. Accessing Sales Reports🔗

Square POS makes it simple to access various sales reports, each designed to give you insight into different aspects of your business.

Steps to Access Sales Reports:

• Open the Square Dashboard on your desktop or mobile app.

• Navigate to Reports > Sales Summary.

• Here, you’ll find an overview of metrics like gross sales, net sales, discounts applied, taxes collected, and refunds processed.

Key Sales Metrics to Focus On:

• Gross Sales: The total amount in sales, including taxes and discounts.

• Net Sales: Sales after refunds and discounts, giving you a clearer picture of actual earnings.

• Sales by Item: This allows you to see which items are the most popular, helping with inventory and menu adjustments.

• Sales by Hour: Discover peak times for your business. Knowing when sales are highest can help you schedule staff accordingly.

2. Understanding Sales by Hour🔗

Tracking sales by hour is particularly useful in the restaurant industry, as it allows you to identify peak periods. This is a built-in feature in Square POS that provides an overview of hourly performance.

Steps for Hourly Sales Reports:

• In your Square Dashboard, go to Reports > Sales by Hour.

• Select your desired timeframe (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly).

• The report will display sales trends across different hours of the day, showing when your restaurant is busiest.

Using Sales by Hour to Improve Operations:

• Staffing: Increase or reduce staff during peak and off-peak hours to optimize labor costs.

• Promotions: Run targeted promotions during slow hours to boost traffic.

3. Monitoring Employee Performance🔗

Employee performance tracking in Square POS can help you measure productivity, monitor work hours, and assess each team member’s impact on sales.

Employee Performance Report:

• Go to Reports > Employee Sales in the Square Dashboard.

• Here, you can view performance by shift, including sales per employee, number of transactions, and average sale size.

Key Metrics for Employee Performance:

• Sales per Employee: See how much each team member is generating in sales. This is a useful indicator of upselling skills and customer service quality.

• Shifts and Hours Worked: Monitor clock-in and clock-out times to ensure timely attendance and see if labor costs are aligned with sales.

• Average Ticket Size: Look at each employee’s average sale amount to understand their effectiveness in suggesting higher-ticket items or bundles.

4. Using Square Shifts for Detailed Time Tracking🔗

Square’s time-tracking feature, Square Shifts, helps you keep an accurate record of hours worked, breaks, and overtime for each employee.

Setting Up Square Shifts:

• Go to Team Management in the Square Dashboard and set up Square Shifts.

• Configure shifts by location if you have multiple branches.

• Enable Clock-in and Clock-out Alerts to ensure employees are logging hours accurately.

Key Features of Square Shifts:

• Timecard Reports: Review employee hours, breaks, and overtime in a detailed format.

• Shift Notes: Employees can leave notes about their shifts, providing valuable feedback on what went well or any challenges they faced.

• Labor vs. Sales Reports: This helps compare labor costs to sales generated, giving insight into productivity and cost-efficiency.

5. Leveraging Custom Reports🔗

Square POS also offers custom reporting options that allow you to tailor reports according to your unique needs.

Creating Custom Reports:

• Navigate to Reports > Custom Reports.

• Choose the specific metrics you want to track, such as sales by category, employee performance by shift, or sales by item.

• Save your report template to make it easily accessible for future use.

Tips for Effective Custom Reports:

• Combine Sales and Labor Data: Use a custom report to view labor costs alongside sales to monitor profit margins in real-time.

• Track Promotion Effectiveness: If you run specific promotions, create custom reports to see how each promotion impacts sales.

6. Scheduling and Automating Reports🔗

To make tracking easier, you can schedule reports to be delivered to your inbox or export them for offline analysis.

Setting Up Scheduled Reports:

• In Reports > Scheduled Reports, set up automated emails for daily, weekly, or monthly reports.

• Choose recipients (e.g., managers, team leads) to keep everyone updated on performance metrics.

7. Utilizing Insights from Square Analytics🔗

Finally, Square Analytics provides insights on trends over time, making it easier to forecast demand and adjust your strategy based on performance.

Viewing Analytics:

• Square Analytics can be accessed in the Dashboard, under Insights.

• Look at Sales Trends, Customer Retention, and Seasonal Patterns to identify opportunities for growth or areas needing improvement.

Using Insights to Improve Performance:

• Adjust Menu Based on Sales Data: Remove low-performing items and promote high-margin dishes.

• Optimize Employee Schedules: Schedule high-performing employees during peak hours, using data on sales by hour and employee performance.

Conclusion🔗

Tracking sales and employee performance in Square POS gives you the power to make data-driven decisions that can positively impact your restaurant’s bottom line. By diving into hourly sales, leveraging employee performance reports, and using Square Shifts, you’ll have a clearer picture of your restaurant’s overall efficiency. Square’s reporting tools are powerful, but they require regular monitoring and adjustments to be effective. Start using these features today to boost your restaurant’s productivity and profitability!