Some stores choose to stay open for 24 hours, and as a result, have to differ in operation to a standard 12-hour store. In Aura, the store needs to be correctly configured to account for these operational differences. Here is a guide for setting up reports for 24-hour trade.  


NB: Be aware that setting any of these settings when not trading 24 hours will cause some reports, particularly the Stock Variance and the Gross Profit, to give incorrect information. Also, it is important that a store follows correct trading procedures. See the solution How Should a Store trade 24 hours with Aura for more information.


Settings

From Backoffice, go to Preferences > System Settings. This will open up the Settings window. 


Under All Computers > Store Settings, there is a setting for Trade Until, which indicates the time of day at which trade closes. For many 24 hour stores, this is some time in the early morning. Everything before this time is set as belonging to the previous day, including Cashups, Employee Shifts and Sales, so it is very important that this time is set correctly.



Next, click Program Settings > Reports, and select the options Use Trading Day for Sales Reports and Use Stocktake Times in Stock Variance/ GP Reports.



When Use Trading Day for Sales Reports is selected, your Sales and Royalty reports will pull their figures for the day from between the Trade Until times as set before. This is very important for the accuracy of these reports.


When Use Stocktake Times in Stock Variance/ GP Reports is selected, this option will enable the ability to capture the time for the closing stocktake of the day when using the Capture Stock feature in Backoffice. This will allow for closing stocktakes to be done at a specific shift changeover time(e.g. in the early morning) as opposed to the end of the calendar day. This time must be at or before the Trade Until time in order for the theoretical sales of the trading period to be reflected correctly.


Running Reports 

Once set, it is important to realise that the procedure for running reports will change slightly. Typically, running the Stock Variance or Gross Profit report will require you to select two dates for opening and closing stock, and the opening stock will be the closing stock of the previous day. For example, selecting 1 June as your From date will display the closing stocktake from 31 May. The Until date would be the actual date of the closing stock take (e.g 30 June).


                


With Use Stocktake Times, both the From and Until dates must be the same date as the posted stocktake. Therefore, you will need to be aware that the calendar date of your stocktake may not necessarily be the same as the trading day, depending on when your shift changeover is and when the stocktake has been posted. In this example, the stocktake is posted for 1 AM. This means that your report will be running from 1 AM of one day to 1 AM of the next day, with the given sales and stock usage figures having occurred between those two times. Using the above example, to get a complete stock or GP reading for June, you would need to run your report from 1 June (using 1 June 01:00 as opening) until 1 July (using 1 July 01:00 as closing).


                



NB: On your Stock Variance and Gross Profit reports, you will now see a header indicating the times at which the opening and closing stock takes were recorded.



Running 'By Shift' Reports 


Many of the Sales reports, including the Item Sales By Category By Date or the Sales By Hour By Date, pull their information from 00:00 - 00:00 (midnight to midnight) of the given dates, making them unsuitable for a 24-hour trading setup. Instead, look for sales reports that run By Shift. This way, you can view your sales information according to your daily shift changeovers, which will be more accurate to your needs.

When running a report By Shift, you will need to enter a starting shift and an ending shift (by order of Till Shift number) instead of the date. The report pulls information from the start of the first given shift up to and including the last given shift.