Shift reports a manager reads in two minutes

At the end of a long shift, the manager prints the till's end-of-day report. It runs to four pages: sales by category, by department, by terminal, by modifier, by hour, by payment type, by tax rate. The manager glances at the total, checks it looks about right, puts the pages in a drawer and goes home. A week later, the accountant asks why Tuesday's card takings are short, and nobody can say.

Shift reports are meant to catch problems on the night, while they can still be explained. A report that takes ten minutes to read is a report nobody reads at midnight. A report that fits on one page, with the figures that matter and a comparison that makes problems stand out, gets read in two minutes, every night.

This guide covers what belongs in a two-minute shift report, how to compare it with a normal shift, the cash up that goes with it, the two lines that most often flag a problem and how to build the habit of reading it. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

Most shift reports go unread because they are too long and say too little. A till's standard end-of-day report lists everything it can, in the order it happens to calculate it. Finding the two figures that matter among forty is a job for someone with time, and the manager at midnight does not have any.

The fix is not a better printer. It is deciding which figures matter, putting them on one page in the same order every night and comparing each one with a normal shift, so anything unusual stands out without searching.

A two-minute shift report needs only a handful of figures. Sales for the shift, against a comparable shift. Covers, and spend per cover. Payments by method: cash, card and anything else. Voids and comps, with the value and who made them. Discounts, if your till gives them. Open checks still to close. And the cash count against what the till expects.

That is all. Everything else, such as sales by category, by hour and by dish, belongs in the weekly review, not the nightly one.

The first line is the shift's sales, compared with a comparable shift: the same shift last week, or the same shift last year. A number on its own tells you almost nothing. Against a comparison, it tells you whether the night was normal.

Write the comparison on the report, or have the system show it. "Friday dinner: 6,200, against 5,900 last Friday" takes a second to read and answers the first question every owner asks.

A large difference you cannot explain is the first flag. Note it, and find out tomorrow.

Covers and spend per cover explain the sales. A night up on last week may have had more guests or the same guests spending more. A night down may have been quieter, or guests may have spent less: fewer drinks, fewer desserts, more sharing.

Spend per cover that falls for several shifts in a row is worth noticing, even if sales are steady. Our guide to average spend per head, split properly covers how to read it.

The payments line shows how the shift was paid: cash, card and any other methods. It is the line the cash up and the card terminal are checked against.

Card payments on the report should match the card terminal's own total for the shift. Cash on the report should match the cash in the drawer, less the float. Any difference beyond a little rounding needs finding before the team leaves. Our guide to POS reports a manager should read daily covers the payment reports in more detail.

Reconciliation is the accountant's word for checking that two records of the same money agree. A reconciliation at the end of every shift compares the card terminal's own total with the card payments on the till.

If they differ, look for the usual causes: a payment recorded on the wrong check, a card payment recorded as cash, a payment taken on the terminal but not recorded on the till, or a refund on the terminal. Find the difference before the team leaves, while everyone remembers the evening.

The cash up is the physical side of the shift report: counting the drawer, separating the float, and comparing what is left with the cash sales the till recorded. Do it with two people where possible, at the end of every shift, before the drawer is handed over.

Record the result, even when it balances. A drawer that is over or short by a small amount is usually a mistake in change; one that is regularly short on certain shifts is a question. Keep the records, because patterns only appear over weeks.

Voids and comps are the second line that most often flags a problem. List the shift's voids and comps, with their value, who made them and why. A normal shift has a few: a dish entered twice, a dessert for a birthday, a steak sent back.

Look for the unusual: a void after a bill was paid, many voids by one person, comps without reasons, a comp total far above normal. Most will have a simple explanation. Ask, and note the answer.

If tips are recorded, note them separately on the shift report: card tips from the terminal and any cash tips counted. Keeping tips apart from sales makes both figures clearer and makes the tip calculation at the end of the period easier.

Check that the card tips on the terminal match what will be shared out. Staff trust a tip system far more when the figures are checked every shift. Our guide to tip distribution that the team believes in covers the sharing.

If your till gives discounts, list them with their reasons and who gave them. A discount without a reason, or many discounts by one person, deserves a question.

Discounts are the action most often used as a favour, so they deserve a line of their own rather than being hidden in the sales figure. Our guide to discounts at the till: who, what and how much covers the rules worth setting.

Open checks at the end of a shift are either tables still eating, bills forgotten, payments recorded somewhere else or guests who left without paying. Each needs closing or explaining before the manager leaves.

A check left open overnight is far harder to resolve in the morning. Make "no open checks without a reason" part of the close.

Of everything on the shift report, two lines flag problems most often. The first is the payments reconciliation: card and cash on the till against the card terminal and the drawer. A difference here means money is missing or recorded wrongly.

The second is voids and comps: their total against a normal shift, and who made them. A spike here means either a bad night in the kitchen or something worth asking about.

If you read nothing else, read those two. Most till problems show up in one of them.

A line or two from the kitchen makes the shift report more useful: how many dishes were remade and why, what was 86'd and when, and whether ticket times at the busiest hour were normal. Those figures explain much of what the floor experienced.

Keep it short. The full kitchen picture belongs in the weekly review; the shift report only needs to flag what was unusual tonight.

Add the floor's notes too: complaints, compliments, incidents and anything the next shift needs to know. "Table 12 complained about the wait for mains; given dessert on the house." "Guest at table 4 left a lost phone, now in the office."

Notes like these turn the shift report into a handover. The next manager starts their shift knowing what happened, rather than finding out from a guest.

In a venue with more than one shift a day, each shift should have its own report, closed by the manager on duty, and the end of day brings them together. That way, a problem on the lunch shift is found by the lunch manager, not discovered by the evening manager at midnight.

End of day is also when the day's records are filed: the shift reports, the cash up sheets, the card terminal's totals and any notes. Keep them together, by date, so any day can be found quickly.

Compare like with like. A Saturday dinner should be compared with other Saturday dinners, not with a Tuesday lunch. A shift with a large party should be compared with a similar shift, or the party's spend noted separately.

Over time, you will learn what a normal shift looks like for each day and service. Once you know normal, unusual stands out on its own.

Sales by hour does not belong on the nightly report, but it belongs in the weekly review. Looking at the week's sales by hour shows when the venue is busy, when it is quiet and whether the rota matches. Our guide to sales by hour: the shape of your trading day covers how to read it.

The nightly report answers whether tonight was normal; the weekly one answers whether the week was run well.

When the figures do not add up, work through the usual causes in order: payments recorded on the wrong method, payments recorded on the wrong check, checks still open, refunds or voids made after payment, and counting mistakes in the drawer.

Most differences are found in a few minutes this way. If one is not, record it, note what you checked and look again with fresh eyes the next day. A difference left unexplained for a week is far harder to trace.

In venues with several shifts a day, the shift report is also the handover. The lunch manager's report tells the evening manager what happened: the takings, the problems, what ran out and anything still open.

Make the handover a habit: the outgoing manager talks the incoming one through the report for two minutes before leaving. Problems spotted at handover are far easier to solve than ones discovered at midnight.

Add a line at the foot of each shift report for notes: what was unusual, what was explained and what needs following up. "Card total 40 under terminal: one payment recorded as cash, corrected." "Three voids on table 9: steaks sent back, kitchen aware."

Those notes turn the report from a set of numbers into a record. When a question comes up a week later, the answer is already written down.

The manager on duty reads the shift report at close, every shift. The owner or general manager reads the week's reports together, looking for patterns across shifts and managers. Both matter: the nightly read catches problems while they can be explained; the weekly read catches patterns no single night shows.

Make sure the reports are signed or initialled by the manager who closed, so it is clear who checked what.

A two-minute report becomes a habit when it is the same every night: the same figures, in the same order, compared in the same way, read at the same point in the close. Do it before counting tips or locking up, while the shift is fresh.

If the report takes longer than two minutes, the problem is usually the report, not the manager. Cut it down until it fits.

Owners who are not on site every night still want to know how each shift went. A short message after close, with the shift's sales against last week, covers, the payments reconciliation and any notes, keeps the owner informed without them needing to log in.

Agree what the message contains, so it is the same every night and takes the manager a minute to send. The owner learns to read it in seconds, and to ask only when something stands out.

Keep the shift reports, the cash up sheets and the card terminal's totals together, by date, for as long as your accountant and the tax rules require. A question about a particular night months later is easy to answer if the papers are in order, and almost impossible if they are not.

The shift report is read twice: by the manager at close, and by the owner or general manager the next morning. The morning read is calmer, and it catches what a tired manager missed at midnight.

Spend the first ten minutes of the day on the previous day's reports: the totals against last week, the payments reconciliation, the voids and comps and the notes. Anything that needs following up is followed up while the team on shift still remembers it.

Add a word of context when something outside the venue affected the shift: heavy rain, a match on television, a local event, roadworks outside. Those explain figures that would otherwise look like problems.

Over a year, the notes on context become a useful record. They show which events bring guests and which keep them away, which helps plan staffing and prep for the next time.

In venues with a busy bar, give the bar its own line on the shift report: bar sales, bar voids and comps, and any bar tabs left open. Bars move quickly and handle more cash than the dining room, so their figures deserve to be seen separately.

A bar line also makes it easier to compare the bar's performance across shifts and to spot a pattern that would be hidden in the venue's total.

New managers need to learn the shift report before they close on their own. Sit with them for a few closes: read the report together, explain each line, show them what normal looks like and what would worry you.

A new manager who knows what to look for reads the report in two minutes. One who does not either reads every line slowly or glances at the total and goes home.

An invented bistro's managers print the till's four-page end-of-day report each night and read only the total. Twice in a month, the accountant finds card takings short and nobody can explain why.

The bistro designs a one-page shift report: sales against the same shift last week, covers and spend per cover, payments by method reconciled with the card terminal and the drawer, voids and comps with names and reasons, open checks and a notes line. Each manager reads and initials it at close.

Within a fortnight, the report catches the cause of the short card takings: card payments occasionally recorded as cash on one till. A training session fixes it, and the accountant's questions stop.

servearound has no single shift report or cash up of its own, and it does not connect to a cash drawer. The figures for one are in its reports for any range of dates, on the venue's own clock: payment analytics show what was collected by day, how it was tendered, what made up the total, revenue by hour, who collected it and voids and comps by member of staff, and order analytics show checks opened, the average and median check and the void and comp rates.

The dashboard's "Right now" shows today's covers, the tables in service and the open orders, so open checks stand out before close, and bills for any range of dates can be downloaded as a spreadsheet for the cash up sheet or the accountant. See Analytics.

Sales against a comparable shift, covers and spend per cover, payments by method, voids and comps, discounts, open checks and the cash count.

Two minutes, if it fits on one page and compares each figure with a normal shift.

The payments reconciliation and voids and comps.

Counting the drawer at the end of a shift and comparing the cash with the till's cash sales.

Yes, closed by the manager on duty, so problems are found by the person who can explain them.

No. It belongs in the weekly review, where it shapes the rota.

The manager on duty every shift, and the owner or general manager each week.

The same figures, in the same order, at the same point in every close, with a line for notes.

Shift reports go unread when they are long and compare nothing. Put the figures that matter on one page: sales against a comparable shift, covers and spend per cover, payments by method, voids and comps, discounts, open checks and the cash count, with a line for notes.

Read it in two minutes at every close, paying closest attention to the payments reconciliation and the voids and comps, keep a separate report for each shift, leave sales by hour for the weekly review, and initial the report so it is clear who checked it.