Here is a comprehensive breakdown of which reports give you the most meaningful sales insights.
DigitBridge offers robust reporting giving you meaningful insights into Sales, Inventory, Order, and Purchase Order data. Here are the most important reports to use for sales data analysis:
Sales Order Inquiry
First off, let's look at the reports included in the Sales Order sidebar menu (1). These reports also live under Order Insights in the Advanced Reports tab on the Reports menu (2), but you can access them from either place.
Looking at Sales Order Inquiry first, you will set your date range, search parameters, and filters, and click Apply. This shows the Summary view, but you can also view a Detailed version, Orders by Channel, Open Orders by Customer, or Monthly Projections depending on what works best for you.
The Open Order by Customer tab returns values representing all open S/Os by Customer. Each S/O is given its own row. You can refine your search by only including certain customers, or other adjustments to your search.
To further specify your results, you can use the filters to search a range of S/O Dates (the date the S/O was created), OR Ship Dates (the date of the actual shipment itself). Seeing as shipments can occur long after the S/O is created (e.g., if it was put on hold and later released), having the ability to view date ranges both ways will give you a lot more accuracy.
You can get more granular by looking at the Sales Order Item Inquiry. Set your date range, search parameters, and filters, and click Apply. This is the Summary view, but you can also view a Detailed version, a Summary by S/O, a Summary by SKU, a Summary by Style, or a Summary by Sub Style depending on what works best for you.
Sales & Inventory Forecast Analysis
This report will empower your sales reps by giving them accurate forecasting that will inform their selling behavior. Using the Filter tool to make this report meet your specifications, you can – with a great deal of accuracy – predict upcoming sales using historical data. Select your preferred date parameters and filters and click Apply. Here we have the Summary screen.
SKU will show you what is in stock, available to sell, in an open S/O, or in an open P/O by week, month to date, year to date, and more, all broken down by SKU.
Style will show you the same information grouped by style (giving you fewer records to look through).
Brand will show you the same information grouped by brand (if you have multiple brands).
Category will show you the same information grouped by what kind of item it is (e.g., Top, Bottom, Dress, Accessory, Set, etc.)
Class will show you the same information grouped by the class of item (e.g., unisex, women's, men's, youth, etc.)
Period Sales will show you sales for a particular period determined by the user. This report can also be found under Reports > Advanced Reports > Product Period Sales.
Product Sales
The Product Sales report gives you complete reporting options for all products sold within a particular timeframe. Set your date range, search parameters, and filters, and click Apply. The first option is the Summary page, showing you total dollar amount sold and total dollar amount returned.
Next is the SKU & Customer & Channel page showing you a detailed view of which items are selling to which customers through which channels.
After that, you can view Product Sales by SKU, Style, Color, Size, Category, Brand, or Class. This allows you more granular insight into not just which items are selling better than others, but what overall trends and product types your customers are leaning towards. Below is a view of the analysis by Size, as an example.
There is also a tab at the end called Underperforming SKUs. This will show you the items that are not selling, allowing you to determine next steps (e.g., have a promotional sale).
Product Monthly Sales
This report gives you valuable insight into how your sales are doing compared to previous months and years. You can see (for example) how your March sales this year fared versus last year and use historical data to get an idea of what your busy times will be and when you might expect a bit of a lull. In the image below, if you were to scroll to the right, the table would show data all the way through December.
You can view this report as a Summary (shown above), by SKU, by Sub Style, by Style, by Category, by Brand, or by Class depending on how general or granular you want to be. As an example, here is what the report looks like by Sub Style. For a quick way to compare annual performance, click the arrow to the left of the Sub Style and it will expand to show you each year you’ve elected to include in this analysis. This will help show you the positive or negative variance in product sales in total, or month by month.
Customer Sales
The Customer Sales report gives you complete reporting options for all sales within a particular timeframe by Customer. The first option is the Summary page, showing you the total dollar amount sold and total dollar amount returned.
Next, you can view the sales analysis by Customer to see trends in customer purchasing (e.g., which customers are ordering more, which have remained static, and which are ordering less than usual). The default here is to show all records in the charts.
If you want to quickly view just a select few, click the boxes to the left of the customer code of the particular customers you’d like to see, and the charts will adjust accordingly.
Viewing this report by Channel is much the same: analyze which channels are performing best for you and which are falling behind. Same as the above, you can select which channels to view in the charts by selecting specific records.
Customer Monthly Sales
This report gives you valuable insight into how your sales by customer are doing compared to previous months and years. You can see (for example) how your March sales this year fared versus last year and use historical data to get an idea of when your customers will start to order more and when you might expect a bit of a lull. In the image below, if you were to scroll to the right, the table would show data all the way through December.
The Detail tab will show you a breakdown customer by customer. For a quick way to compare annual performance, click the arrow to the left of the Customer # and it will expand to show you each year you’ve elected to include in this analysis. This will help show you the positive or negative variance in their ordering history overall, or month by month.
