Reports by Till, Register, Computer Station, or Employee

Reporting by till, register, computer station, or employee has limited use-cases.  This article will provide an overview of reporting by till, register, computer station, and employee and explore possible use cases where reporting by these dimensions is appropriate and where it is not recommended.

Let’s start with some definitions of some terms as they pertain to Aluvii

Till

An Aluvii till is linked to a specific physical cash bag or cash drawer and tracks the cash and coin that is supposed to go in and out of the cash bag. 

Example:  often, a business that accepts payments in cash and coin will supply the cashier with a drawer or bag of cash and coin in various denominations in order to provide necessary change.  This drawer or bag of cash and coin is tied to an Aluvii till using the cash control activity.  A till is then tied to one employee.  

Register

A register is the specific Aluvii shopping cart interface used to create and edit orders. 

Example:  There are custom registers that are configured in the Register Management activity and used in the Employee Registers activity.  There are also registers for on-site and online registers for events, managing memberships, equipment rentals, and eCommerce.  Registers do not refer to the physical computer or device being used.

Computer Station

A computer station or other smart device used to interact with Aluvii. 

Example:  The PC point of sale station sitting at the front desk.  This may have a tower, touch screen monitor, mouse, keyboard, web cam, receipt printer, cash drawer, etc.  Another example is a customer's smart phone used to make an online order.

Aluvii is aware of the PC accessing Aluvii if POS hardware peripherals such as cash drawers, receipt printers, and ticket printers are involved; otherwise, just the IP address of the computer accessing Aluvii is logged against the order.

Employee

The employee logged into the employee portal ([subdomain].aluvii.com/employee) when an order is created.

Reports by Till

Running reports by till is typically done for purposes of tracking cash and coin transactions. 

Because the specific purpose of a till is to track the cash and coin movement in and out of cash bags and drawers, it is not recommended to pull reports by till to track transactions with tender types other than cash and coin.  It is also not recommended to try to report on total sales by till, because you would be missing transactions that were not paid for with cash and coin, such as online sales and sales where another form of payment was tendered.

Because a till can be used over several days/weeks/months, it is not recommended to run reports by till to determine sales over a specific time frame.  Even with strict cash control and till procedures that prevent the same till being used across multiple reporting periods, a till can be inadvertently used in different reporting periods and lead to confusion when attempting to reconcile to reports by date.

Reports by Register

Running reports by register is typically done for the purpose of getting a general sense for the source areas of revenue for your business.  For example, you could see the total sales that were created on the employee register called "Gift Shop 1" or the event register, manage membership register, or eCommerce store/(register).

Because the register is not tied to a specific computer or employee or till, a report by register is not useful in determining how much in sales a particular POS station, employee, or till performed. 

Reports by Computer

Running reports by computer is not supported, because Aluvii is only aware of the computer based on IP address, and IP address logging is dependent on many factors that make it an unreliable way to track sales.

Reports by Employee

Running reports by employee is typically done when you want to know which employee was logged in when creating orders. 

Examples include tracking incentives for sales volume, troubleshooting a transaction, etc.  Because orders can be made outside of the employee portal, such as via eCommerce store, guest portal, rentals portal, and event portal, it is not recommended to pull reports by employee to track total sales.

A summary of use cases and which reports would be appropriate: