The classic sales report: every item sold in a period, grouped by item type and category, with quantity, gross sales, discount, net sales, how much was cash and how much credit, each item's share of sales, average price, cost of goods and gross margin. If you have used QuickBooks, this is the same report.
Before you start
- You need permission to view sales reports.
- Room nights count in the night they were billed, not the day the folio was opened, so a long stay spreads across the months it covers.
Steps
- Open Reports → Sales by Item Summary.
- Pick the period (this month to date, last month, or your own dates).
- Optionally narrow by Department, Category, or click the item type chips to show only, say, Inventory and Service.
- Read the totals on the right: net, cash, credit, cost and margin.
- The grid groups by Type, then Category, with subtotals on each. Click a column heading to sort, or search for an item.
- Print, or export to Excel / CSV with the type and category on each row.
The columns
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Qty | Units sold. Added up within a category, never across types — plates and room nights don't add. |
| Gross Sales | Quantity × price, before any discount and before tax |
| Discount | Line discounts given |
| Net Sales | What was invoiced: gross less discount |
| Cash / Credit Sales | Net sales on cash invoices and on credit invoices; the two add to net |
| % of Sales | This item's net as a share of all net sales on the report |
| Avg Price | Net ÷ quantity |
| COGS | Cost of the goods sold (see Cost basis) |
| Avg COGS | COGS ÷ quantity |
| Gross Margin | Net − COGS |
| Margin % | Gross margin as a share of net — red when negative, amber under 20% |
Cost basis
Cost posted at sale (the default) is the cost recorded when each item left stock. It is the figure your Profit & Loss carries, and it doesn't change when you later buy at a different price.
Current average cost is the item's average cost as it stands now × quantity sold. Some other systems report this way, so it is useful for a like-for-like comparison with old printouts, but it restates history every time a cost changes. The print-out says which basis was used.
Items with no cost
Rooms, services and fees have no cost of goods, so they have no margin, not a 100% margin. They show "—" in the cost and margin columns, their net sales are reported in the grey note above the grid, and the margin % in the totals is worked out on the sales that do carry a cost. (Reports that count them as 100% on the line and 0 in the totals make the overall margin look far lower than it is.)
Tips
- Sort by Margin % ascending to find what you're selling at a loss.
- A margin that looks absurd (−1,000%) is almost always a costing error on the item: a recipe or purchase unit that doesn't match the selling unit. Fix the item card, not the report.
- Compare Cash and Credit per category to see where your receivables come from.
Common problems
Numbers differ from a printout from another system. Three expected reasons: it may have used current average cost (switch the cost basis to compare); it may show uncosted items at 100% margin; and its average price may be an unweighted average of line prices rather than net ÷ quantity.
An item shows "—" for cost although it's a stock item. Nothing was posted from stock for those sales — usually an invoice raised with no delivering department. Check the invoice's delivery.
The quantity total at the bottom is blank. On purpose: quantities of different kinds of thing can't be added. Each category subtotal still shows its quantity.