How to build, save and schedule a report

Selling › Reports answers your own questions about sales, stock and what is on order, "counted the same way your Open to buy file counts them." You build a report from a row of choices, run it, and then download, save, share or email it. It is part of What is Store analytics?.

At Fairgreen Golf Co., Priya Raman keeps a saved report of net sales by brand against last year. It lands in her inbox every Monday at 07:00, before the trading meeting.

Before you start

You need these:

• The Reports module on, in Settings › Modules. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.
• A connected Shopify store, and See sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief. That is one row in Settings › Permissions and starts at lead. See How to set who can do what.
• For on-order numbers or a split by supplier, the View purchase orders and the buying calendar row as well.
• To save, share or schedule a report, the Change stock, receiving and store settings row.

Reports counts only the stock at locations you own, so your workspace has to say which those are. Until it does, the page reads "Save which locations are yours first." Press Open the data feed settings and tick them, covered in How to send your open-to-buy file to a buying planner.

What can a report show?

Fourteen numbers, in four groups. Pick as many as you like on the Show choice:

• Sales: net sales, gross sales, discounts, returns, units sold.
• Stock: stock units, stock retail, stock cost.
• On order: on order units, on order cost, on order retail.
• Receiving: received units, receiving cost, receiving retail.

Every number splits by category, brand, product, variant or month. Sales, stock and receiving also split by location. On-order numbers also split by purchase order, and by entered in (where the order was written: Tideswell, Stocky, Entered elsewhere or Not stated).

On-order and receiving numbers also split by supplier, meaning who the purchase order is with. That can differ from the brand, because one supplier often carries several brands. Two extra rows keep every dollar in: No supplier, for orders with no supplier attached, and Supplier not recorded in Shopify.

How do you see spend by supplier?

Press Spend by supplier under Starting points. It shows money on order now and money received in the last 90 days, one row per supplier.

To build it yourself, choose on order cost and receiving cost, split by supplier, and pick the period. A supplier split or a supplier filter works only with on-order and receiving numbers, so take sales and stock out first, or the page says which to remove.

How do you build a report?

The page opens on Build a report, set to net sales by category for the last 30 days. Change it with the row of choices, then press Run report.

1. Show: tick the numbers you want.
2. Split by: pick up to two ways to break them down. Only the splits your numbers can use are offered.
3. The date button: pick the period. It works like the one on Analytics, covered in How to change the date range.
4. Compare: no comparison, previous period, or last year.
5. Add filter: pick a field, then the values. Choose Only these to keep them or Leave these out to drop them.
6. Press Run report.

Stock appears when a stock number is on. It counts Stock you own (the default), Stock you don't own, or All stock. Sales appears when a sales number is on, and chooses between Items you own and Include items you don't own.

Changing a choice does not rerun the report. The page says "The results below are from before your changes. Run it again to update them." until you press Run report.

How do you read the answer?

A tile at the top shows the total for each number. With a comparison on, each tile, each row and the Total row show the change against the earlier period.

Switch between Table and Chart above the answer. When the report is split, click a row to see what is inside it: a category opens into its products, and a product into its variants.

A greyed blank means something behind that figure has no value recorded, so it is left blank rather than counted as zero. A real zero reads 0. A line under the answer may also say how many units, and how much at retail, your "not ours" marks left out.

Can you type a report instead?

Yes. Press Type it instead and the report appears as one line you can edit. Press Use this to turn it back into choices, then Run report.

SHOW net sales, units sold BY brand WHERE category is Knitwear DURING last 90 days COMPARE last year

The line and the choices are the same report, so build it whichever way is quicker. If a line cannot be read, Tideswell keeps what you typed and says what to fix.

Where do you start if you do not want to build one?

From Starting points at the foot of the page. Each opens in the builder and runs:

• Sales by category: net sales and units for the last 90 days.
• Stock by brand: what is on the shelves you own right now, at retail and at cost.
• On order by purchase order: what is coming, and which order it is on.
• Spend by supplier: money on order now and money received in the last 90 days, per supplier.
• Month to date against last year: net sales by brand, beside the same days a year ago.

Saved reports sits above them, holding your own reports and the ones colleagues have shared.

What are the counting rules?

They decide which stock and sales count as yours. Every report starts with Same as your Open to buy data feed, so the two always agree unless you change them.

Open Counting rules to give one report its own:

• Your locations: only stock at the locations you tick counts as yours.
• Consignment: categories or brands on your shelves that you never bought. They are left out of stock, and out of sales unless Sales is set to Include items you don't own.
• Not merchandise: things sold but never bought as stock, such as lessons and gift cards. They are left out of stock; their sales stay.
• Group categories by: Product type or Brand.
• Include wholesale sales.

Changing them here changes this report only. Go back to the data feed's rules undoes it.

How do you download a report?

Press Download above the answer. It saves the report on screen as a CSV file, ready for a spreadsheet.

How do you save and share a report?

Run the report, press Save, type a name in the box, and press Save. It joins Saved reports.

Share it with the workspace starts unticked, so a new report is yours alone. Tick it to show the report to everyone who can open Reports; it carries a shared label in the list.

On one of your own saved reports the button reads Save changes, which writes over it. On a colleague's shared report, Save keeps your own copy under a new name. Start a new one clears the builder.

Delete removes one of your own saved reports, and any schedule on it, as soon as you press it. Make sure nobody still relies on it before you press it.

How do you email a report on a schedule?

Open one of your own saved reports from Saved reports (it runs as it opens) and press Send it. Then pick how often, when, and who it goes to.

1. Choose Daily, Weekly or Monthly.
2. For weekly, pick the day under On. For monthly, pick a day from 1 to 28 under On day.
3. Pick the hour under At. It is your store's own time.
4. Under To, type up to 20 email addresses, separated by commas.
5. If anyone on the list is not in your workspace, tick "Some of these people are not in this workspace, and I want them to have it."
6. Press Save.

The button then reads Sending, and the list shows the report as emailed weekly (or daily, or monthly). Each email carries the report's name and dates in the subject, the table in the message, and the full report as an attached CSV file.

To change the schedule, press Sending, edit it, and press Save. To end it, press Stop sending.

What if the scheduled emails stop arriving?

Press Sending on the report and press Save again. That restarts a schedule that has stopped after failing three times in a row.

Scheduled emails go out through Report delivery, one of the Background jobs on Brain › Automations, so keep it switched on. Press Show all beside Background jobs, then click Report delivery to open its panel, where its switch is. See How to see what runs in the background.

What does "This report has no answer yet" mean?

Tideswell could not read part of what the report needs. It lists what is missing in place of a total that would be wrong.

Fix what the list names, or pick dates it can read, and press Run report again.

Can the Agent run these for you?

Yes. Ask the What is the Agent? for sales, stock or on-order figures by brand, category, month or location, or for spend by supplier, and it runs the same report this page would. Its figures match the ones you get here.