How to read Tideswell's numbers and dates

Most "this number looks wrong" moments in Tideswell turn out to be a reading problem rather than a data problem. A figure is in a currency you were not expecting, a blank is being read as a zero, or a date range covers different days than you assumed. This page covers all three, wherever a figure appears: Selling › Analytics, a purchase order, or a field on a record.

It belongs to Core concepts, the reading section of these docs. Where a rule affects a field you are adding to an Object, one of the kinds of record your team defines, this page says so and points at What is an Object?.

Which currency is a figure in?

Whichever currency that figure belongs to, and Tideswell always says which. Figures from your store are in your connected store's currency.

A purchase order is in the currency recorded on the supplier. Amounts you record yourself on your own Objects use your workspace's home currency.

Two consequences are worth holding on to.

• A supplier's currency is copied onto an order when the order is created. Change the currency on the supplier afterwards and old orders keep the currency they were written in, so history never re-prices itself. Fairgreen Golf Co.'s old orders with Portside Mills still read euros after Portside switches to dollars.
• Amounts in different currencies are never added together. Where a total covers orders in more than one currency, you get one figure per currency, side by side. A supplier's page, the purchase order list and the buying calendar all work this way.

When you add a Money field to an Object, the amount you type replaces whatever was there before. That makes it right for a price or a quoted cost, and wrong for a running balance that something subtracts from.

Read How to plan your fields before you add them before you save a new field. Choose its type carefully, because a field's type is fixed once it exists.

What does a blank or a dash mean?

That the figure is not known, which is different from being zero. A blank or a dash means nothing was recorded, or the figure could not be worked out. A zero means the answer is genuinely nothing.

You will meet this rule in several places, and it always means the same thing.

• A gross margin is left off for a product with no cost recorded, because "we do not know the cost" is not the same as "this product makes no margin".
• A quantity confirmed by a supplier is blank until they confirm. Blank means nobody has answered yet; a confirmed zero means they have told you they are sending none.
• A discrepancy on a delivery stays blank until something actually arrives.
• A card that could not load its figures shows a dash or a short "failed to load" line rather than a zero.
• On a track record, an outcome that could not be judged shows a dash, not 0%, because "missed everything" and "nothing was measurable" are different results.
• In a record's history, a value that was empty reads as the word "empty".

So when a figure matters, check whether it is blank or zero before you act on it. If it is blank, ask what has not been recorded yet.

How fresh is the number you are looking at?

Tideswell tells you, wherever a figure is worked out rather than read live. Selling › Analytics and Selling › Inventory carry a stamp such as Updated 4m ago beside a Refresh button. Press Refresh to work the figures out again there and then.

Worked-out fields on a record do the same in miniature, with a short line beside the value. It reads "calculated 5m ago" when it is current, and "last checked 2h ago · may be out of date" when it might have moved. A record you created moments ago shows "Not calculated yet".

If a calculation could not run, you get a plain-English reason in place of the number. See How to build a field that works itself out to set those up, and How to add and edit a record to read them on a record.

Which dates and times is Tideswell using?

Your own, for anything about your day. Your time zone decides what counts as today for you: when a task is due, when it turns overdue, and when your quiet hours start. It lives in User menu › Account settings, under What buzzes you.

Out of the box it follows your device, so it is right without you setting anything. Turn off the switch beside it and pick a zone if you want it to stay put when you travel. See How to set your time zone.

Store figures are the other way round. Sales and orders on Selling › Analytics are counted on your shop's own day, from the shop's midnight, so everyone on the team sees the same "today" wherever they are.

Chat and activity feeds show relative times, such as "2h ago". Work › My tasks groups your tasks into Overdue, Today, This week, Later and No due date, and Work › Roadmap draws a line at today.

How do dates work on your own Objects?

Dates come in two shapes, and the difference matters when you build an Object. A Date field holds a single day, which is right for a delivery date or a launch day.

A Date and time field holds a day and a time, which is right for an appointment or a cutoff. See How to search, filter and save a view for narrowing a record list by a date range.

What does a date range actually cover?

On Selling › Analytics, one date picker at the top sets the period for the page, and it offers three different kinds of period. Knowing which kind you picked stops two people comparing numbers that were never the same thing.

• A rolling window counts backwards from today. "Last 30 days" is always thirty days long.
• A calendar period is a whole finished week, month, quarter or year, with fixed boundaries. "Last month" is that month entire, not the last thirty days.
• A period to date is the current week, month, quarter or year so far, so it always ends today and grows as the period goes on.

"Today" in the picker is your shop's today, the same day the figures are counted on. The Include today tick shifts a rolling window rather than lengthening it: with it on, "Last 7 days" ends today, and with it off, it ends yesterday.

Either way it is seven days. If a figure here does not match a figure in another tool, check this box first.

The up and down arrows on the headline tiles compare your window with the equal-length stretch immediately before it. Pick a 90-day window and the arrow compares it with the 90 days before that, not with last year. See How to change the date range.

How do you read a percentage, a reference number and a worked-out value?

A Percent field is a share out of 100, shown with its sign. It is the right type for a margin or a discount. A Number field is anything you count.

A Reference number counts up on its own and is stamped on the record when it is first saved, with a short prefix taken from the Object's name. A repair at Fairgreen Golf Co. becomes RPR-1042.

Nobody types it, so it is safe to quote in an email to a factory. See How to set up choice lists and reference numbers.

A worked-out value is marked as calculated wherever it appears, cannot be typed over, and carries the freshness line described above. On a record list, money, number, percent, count and calculated columns line up on the right so the digits stack.

How to find and open your records covers the list itself, and Tideswell glossary defines the terms used here.