The fastest way to get insights from Square Dashboard is to start with a business question and go straight to the report that answers it. Sales summary and sales trends tell you how the business is doing, item and category sales tell you what is selling, labor reports tell you whether staffing matches demand, and accounting reports tell you what payments and taxes cost. A short weekly review of four or five reports beats an occasional deep dive into all of them.
A map of questions to reports
| Question | Where to look in Square |
|---|---|
| How did we do this week? | Sales summary |
| Are we growing or shrinking? | Sales trends |
| What are our best and worst sellers? | Item sales |
| Which part of the menu earns the most? | Category sales |
| Which add-ons do people buy? | Modifier sales |
| Are we overstaffed or understaffed? | Labor vs sales (plan dependent) |
| Who on the team sells the most? | Team member sales (plan dependent) |
| How do customers pay? | Payment methods |
| What does accepting payments cost? | Fees |
| How much sales tax did we collect? | Sales taxes |
Report names and their location in the menu can change, and some reports depend on your Square plan. If you cannot find one, search Square's help center for the report name.
1. Sales performance: Sales summary and Sales trends
The Sales summary is your scoreboard: gross sales, discounts, refunds, net sales, tips and taxes for any date range. Filter by location and compare with the same period last week or last year.
Sales trends shows the direction over time. Use it to answer:
- Which days of the week are strongest?
- Which hours bring the most sales?
- Is the average ticket rising or falling?
Example: a coffee shop sees that sales between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. have been flat for months. That is a clear target for an afternoon special or a loyalty promotion.
2. Menu insights: Item, category and modifier sales
Item sales ranks every item by units and revenue. Sort it both ways: an item can sell a lot but bring little revenue, or the reverse.
- Top sellers: protect them. Keep them in stock and easy to find.
- Bottom sellers: ask whether they earn their place, especially if they need unique ingredients.
- Category sales shows the mix: are drinks 60 percent of sales or 30 percent? That shapes where you invest.
- Modifier sales shows which upgrades customers choose, which is useful when pricing add-ons.
These reports only work if items and categories are set up cleanly. Our guide to accurate sales reporting with Square covers that.
3. Labor insights: Labor vs sales and timecards
If your plan includes it, the Labor vs sales report compares hourly labor cost to net sales. Square places it in the reports area under operations. Use it to:
- Spot hours where staffing is high but sales are low.
- Check that peak hours are properly covered.
- Plan next week's schedule from real demand.
Timecard reports show hours worked by team member. For setup, see tracking employee hours with Square timecards.
4. Money insights: Payment methods, fees and taxes
- Payment methods shows the mix of card, cash, gift card and other payments.
- Fees, under the accounting reports, shows transaction fees and the overall cost of taking payments.
- Sales taxes shows taxable and non-taxable sales for your filing periods.
5. Build a custom report for your weekly review
Square lets you build custom reports from blocks like sales summary, item sales, category sales and team member sales. Put the four or five numbers you check every week on one page so the review takes minutes.
A 20-minute weekly routine
- Sales summary: net sales versus last week and the same week last year.
- Sales trends: any day or hour that changed a lot.
- Item sales: top 10 and bottom 10.
- Labor vs sales: the two worst hours of the week.
- One action: write down one change to try next week.
For how to organize the Dashboard itself, see best practices for managing your Square Dashboard. When you are ready to turn these insights into pricing decisions, read maximizing profit margins with Square analytics.
Common mistakes
- Looking at gross sales instead of net sales.
- Comparing a holiday week with a normal week.
- Forgetting to filter by location in a multi-location business.
- Reading reports without taking a single action.
- Letting duplicate or misnamed items split your item sales data.
See every channel in one place
Insights are only complete if every order is in Square. With Orda, orders from your branded app, ordering website and kiosks flow straight into Square POS, so your Square reports include them alongside counter sales. Orda's own dashboard adds analytics for your app on top. More than 10,000 Square businesses have used Orda.