Read reports with the right context
Choose the period, location and metric before comparing results.
On this page
Choose your location and period
Select the location and dates you want to compare. Reports use the location's timezone. Order placement, payment time, scheduled fulfillment and the business day can use different date boundaries, so check the report's definition.
Keep test and live activity separate. Compare currencies separately unless you have an explicit conversion basis.
Choose the right measure
| Measure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ordered food value | The value of products ordered; not necessarily money received. |
| Captured customer payments | Money captured from payments, including payments later partially or fully refunded. |
| Net customer payments | Captured payments less their recorded refunds, up to the captured amount. |
| Merchant net | Also accounts for lost disputes and merchant fees. Missing fees can leave it incomplete. |
| Transactions | Payment records, which are not necessarily unique orders. |
| Settlement balance | Funds attributed to the location, separated into available and pending. |
| Payouts | Transfers of funds already collected, not additional sales. |
| Customer spend | Recorded payment-based spend for the selected currency and period. |
| Staff hours and tips | Recorded staff activity available to your role. |
Refund dates and changed totals
A payment-based report can show cumulative refunds against payments in the selected period. A refund-event report instead uses the dates on which refunds were created. These answer different questions.
Later refunds can change totals for an earlier payment period. Do not add the two refund measures together, as they can describe the same money.
The Overview comparison uses payment time and compares with the immediately preceding period of equal length.
Ask Gordon about a report
Include the period and measure: for example, “Show net customer payments for Acme last week in GBP.” If you do not specify a period and there is no earlier reporting context, Gordon uses the last 30 local calendar days. The selected location's mode is the default.
Related follow-ups keep the same context. After “Show sales this week,” “What about delivery?” can use the same week. State a new location or period when you want to change it. Full-service and quick-service dine-in can be separate service types.
Read incomplete results carefully
Unavailable amounts are unknown, not zero. Check any missing-data notes and whether a list shows all results or only the leading entries. Different products can appear in the same order, so their order counts cannot always be added together.
Comparing current item costs with historical revenue does not establish historical profit. For comparisons, use the same date basis, metric, currency and filters.
Staff and customer totals
Salary reports use closed time entries, including active and inactive staff, rather than planned shifts. They are separate from test/live sales filters. Several compensation entries can belong to one person.
The number of saved customer profiles is independent of the sales period. A top-customer list is not the total profile count. For customer rankings, choose spend or purchase frequency; they can produce different leaders.