Common Issues for Sales Discrepancies

The Dashboard and Actuals Report offers a convenient snapshot of your business performance and sales history, giving your management team valuable insights for day-to-day operations.

If you've noticed discrepancies between the numbers in your integrated POS and 7shifts, this article provides helpful tips on how to address and resolve those inconsistencies.

An overview!

The integration between 7shifts and your POS follows default rules to ensure accuracy and reliable reporting:

• 7shifts and most integrated POSs must both be in the same timezone and have work day hours ranging from 5AM—5AM.
  
  
• Once your integration has been activated, your real-time sales data will be enabled by default. We will backfill 14 days of previous sales.
  
  To check the current status of this feature, head to Apps & Integrations > My Integrations > click on your POS > Settings > Sales. Real-time sales & forecasting should always be toggled on to ensure data is coming through:
  
  
  
  

• The integration operates on a predefined sync frequency, which varies depending on the POS system. This means that changes made in either system may not be immediately reflected in the other, and you can expect a slight delay in when newly added data is pulled into 7shifts. This timeframe can vary by seconds, minutes, or hours, depending on the POS.

Common causes of sales discrepancies

A. Voided or deleted receipts in your POS system can sometimes lead to discrepancies in the data synced with 7shifts. This is because 7shifts does not retroactively discard the extra receipts that were automatically pulled from the sales totals, which can result in higher or overstated totals in 7shifts data. 

B. Open receipts could similarly be a result of "merged" or "deleted" receipts from your POS. By the same effect as the point above,  the data from the sale have synced over to 7shifts but no longer exist on the POS. To help maintain data accuracy, it may be helpful to provide training to your staff on the correct procedures to delete/void receipts and ensure that they understand the impact this has on data synchronization.

C. By default, sales data pulled from your POS into 7shifts represents net sales. This  is calculated using the formula:

Net Sales =  Gross Sales - (Tax + Tips + Refunds + Discounts)

D. Accounts with an Omnivore connection do not pull gift card sales into total sales calculations. You will need to ensure that there are no typos when defining the item name for Gift Card line items on your POS. Otherwise, these items will contribute to total sales.

E. When enabling Department-Based Budgeting,  it is crucial to ensure that revenue centers and categories are configured correctly. For more details on how to set up revenue centers and categories, you can click here for further information.

If you have recently enabled Department-Based Budgeting, please note that it will not retroactively update historical data. In this scenario, reach out to our support team for assistance in pushing a sync through!

Troubleshooting

If you continue to experience discrepancies between 7shifts and your POS system, our team is here to help troubleshoot the root cause! This includes checking configuration settings, comparing data from both platforms and providing further guidance.

To expedite the resolution process, please provide our team with the following information (screenshots are most welcome too!):

1. Exports of sales/receipt data reports.
2. The sales figure that you're expecting to see. 
3. A description of the discrepancy you are encountering, including the numbers that are not matching between 7shifts and your POS.
4. Confirm the specific location in 7shifts where you are looking at the sales data, such as the Dashboard, Actuals Report, or any other relevant section.
   
5. The timeframe and frequency of the discrepancy, including when it was first noticed and if it occurs consistently or sporadically. 

This information will help our team to narrow down the possible causes, identify patterns and investigate accordingly. Once you've compiled this information, get in touch with our Support team start a chat with us!