Collecting all the sales data in the world is not going to do you any good if you do not have a way to look at it. Further a simple listing of sales isn’t going to help very much either because although it might be neat to see the massive number of sales you are doing you can’t make very educated guesses about sales and how to drive them up by looking at that simple pool of sales.
That is where reporting and later mash ups come in. A report in its basic element is some piece or set of data that is formatted in such a way as to provide insight into the data behind it. So in essence, a report is nothing more then a fancy veneer over your data. Reports are essential and without them, you might find having all this great SL Sales Tracker provided sales data is… well, useless.
That said, hopefully the need for reports has been demonstrated, this article is going to look at the matrix-reporting tool and how it can help you to become better acquainted with your sales data. Further, this article will show you how to ask your data questions and of course get answers to those questions.
It is easiest to get started with the matrix-reporting tool by looking at one of the predefined reports. To view one you need only a few things, a SLST account and some sales data. Go ahead and log into your SLST account now.
First up are the predefined reports. After logging in look for the Reporting menu item near the top of the screen and hover over it. Next hover over the Reports item in the menu that is shown to see a list of the predefined reports you can view. You will see reports like the Sum of Sales by Region and the Count of Sales by Category Region. Choose one that sounds interesting by clicking it.
Now depending on the report you choose you will see something different. (Keep in mind you will see nothing if you do not have any recorded sales data in your account.) Essentially, there are three elements to a matrix report. There are the column headers, the row headers and the data items. These together form a grid with the column header making up the top row and the row headers making up the first column and the data elements filling up the spaces to the side.
Regardless of the report, you chose before; choose the Count of Sales by Category Region report now. You will notice all the regions you sell items in across the top and the various categories you sell product in down the side. The data elements will be the count of sales sold for each category in each region. Note of course that your data is going to be different. Even this simple report can already help you to understand your sales better! You might notice that one of your regions is not selling a particular category of item very well. That might key you into one of two things. Either you are not actually selling that item in that region or people that frequent that region do not buy a lot of that type of item. In either case, you can now take steps to correct the situation by possible removing the wasted prims that are not selling anyway to make room for products that do sell or you can add those products to that region to see how they do.
Now that you have a better understanding of what these matrix reports look like we will take a quick look at how you can create your own. It is easy, fun and can provide even more insight into your sales.
Start by clicking the Reporting menu item and then New Report. This will bring up the new report wizard. You will start on the first step, which is selecting the items shown on the report. Notice there is a drop down list that lets you select what field you want to see for the column header and which you would like to see for the row headers. Also, notice you can select how you want to see the data. You can choose any one of a number of ways such as sum or minimum. Each of these has a different meaning. Sum means you want to see the sum of all sales that fit the data items, average means you will see the average sales, maximum means you will see the largest sale, minimum means you will see the smallest sale and finally count means you will see the number of sales instead of an aggregate on the sale price.
You can choose a column and no row header, a row header and no column or both a row header and a column header but you must choose one or the other or both. After you have made your selection click next.
The next screen of the wizard is the sort screen. This screen allows you to choose how you want your data sorted on the final report. Choose the direction of sort on the column, row or data items. If you want to specify more then one sort, you can indicate the precedence of the sort with the numbers next to each sort. Choose one for the first sort, two for the second sort and three for the third sort applied. When you are finished applying your sorts, click the next button.
The next page of the wizard is the filter page. Using the filter page, you can choose the exact transactions you want to see in your report. First, notice the date filter. You can type in the start and end dates you wish to see in the report your are creating or you can choose the range drop down to choose a quick range. Using a quick range is usually better because it does not hard-code a date into the report and as such, you can use the report later without changing the date in the filter. Second, look at the category, product, vendor, region, buyer name and cost filters. Using these filters, you can search for specific products. For example if you want to report on only products that have the word fire in their product name you’d type fire into the product text area. After you choose your filter criteria click the next button to move onto the final step.
The final page in the wizard gives you a chance to name your report and to save it for use later. Naming your report is easy, just type in the name of the report into the name text area. Notice the check box right below the name area called Save Report for Later Use. If you want to use your later and do not want to have to create the report again, check this box. The site will save the report and you will be able to view it anytime you want.
After you have entered the name of your report and checked the save report, if you want it to be viewable later, click the view report button to see all your hard work in action!
If you see no data, do not worry, you may have inadvertently made a mistake. Click the edit report link at the top left to go back to the report editor. Look at the following possible causes of seeing no data.
Did you forget to choose either a row header or a column header or both? You must select at least one.
Did you specify a filter that will not return any results? If you sell Dresses and mistype Dresses as “Drisses”, you may not see any data in your report.
Make sure you sold some items during the selected data range.
After you fix up your selected data items and/or filter click view report to see your data!
Remember, take your time and think about what you want to see in your report. There are many options and it is easy for a person to become confused and disoriented with the wizard. After you make a few reports, you will be cranking them out in no time at all. Now that you have the ability ask you data questions, you can truly find out the answers to the questions that will help your business grow!