With Sales Report employee and the manager receives the necessary information that is needed for the analysis, planning and evaluation past sales results. Monitoring sales activities of employees and the company itself allows the manager to take timely measures to coordinate the work of their subordinates and rationally distribute the available resources. Also, such report provides a deep understanding how past actions reflected actual sales and whether it is better to change the strategy or to keep one. Experts recommend drawing up a report on its work to this end, always having a plan for the report. The Council also has to prepare templates, which subsequently bring relevant results and data.
The aim of any sales system is permanent and sustainable fulfillment of the sales plan, as well as sales encasement in accordance with the set-up for a year. Sales report – it is a report that lists all the sales data for some time. Competent plan should also include the whole system of incentives for sales managers. Actually, this is one of the most important documents for employees. Good salesmen should be always cherished by management.
While writing Retail Store Sales Report for the past four year I would include 5 main factors there.
First is Total Sales dynamics. In other words sales change throughout those years. It would be necessary to show these sales change in Year-over-Year comparison to describe the global statistics and to show if financial performance of the company is increasing or decreasing. Moreover, it helps to understand changes over particular years and compare the results in the 1st year to the 2nd one and so on. Afterwards, this comparison may be split into Month-over-Month comparison and Week-over-Week. However, writing the report for the last four years the most suitable comparison is Year-over-Year plus Season-over-Season.
Second factor to include is comparison the dynamics shown above to the planned and expected sales results. This comparison is one of the most important part of the report as it clearly shows how the applied strategy during those four year was accurate and workable.
Third one to include – ABC analysis. ABC analysis is a tool that allows you to explore the product range, to determine the ranking of goods specified criteria and to identify the part of the range that ensures the maximum effect (Collignon, 2012, n.p.). The range is usually analyzed along two dimensions: sales (realized amount) and profit (realized trading margin). ABC - analysis is based on the Pareto rule, according to which 20% of SKUs provides 80% of the profits. Practice shows that 10% of products range (group A) give 80% of turnover; 15% point range (group B) showed 15% of turnover; 75% point range (group C) gives 5% of turnover. Given this, the entire range of commercial enterprises can be divided into groups according to the degree of importance (Lavinsky, 2014, n.p.).
Group A - very important items that should always be present in the range. If the parameter is used in the analysis of sales, in this group there are leaders in the number of sales. If the parameter is used in the analysis of margin trading, in this group there are the most profitable products.
Group B – goods of intermidiate importance.
Group C - the least important items, is to exclude applicants from a range of products and novelties.
The first stage of the ABC - analysis is to identify the targets. If the goal is to reduce the range, then as the basic parameters chosen sales, profit (Lavinsky, 2014, n.p.). If the goal is to identify and reduce the cost of maintaining inventory, then as the basic parameters chosen turnover ratio, the amount of illiquid assets and the occupied storage capacity. If you want to explore the margins, the basic parameter is selected, the turnover ratio, the level of profitability. ABC-analysis data to help optimize the product range. With all the numerous advantages of this kind of analysis, there is one significant drawback: this method does not assess the seasonal fluctuations in demand for commodities (Collignon, 2012, n.p.).
After ABC analysis usually follows XYZ analysis and this one I would also include to the report. XYZ-analysis - a tool to divide the products according to the degree of stability of sales and the level of volatility of consumption (Waszkiewicz, Buliński & Buraczewski, 2012, 93). The method of this analysis is to calculate each item the coefficient of variation or fluctuation rates. This ratio indicates the deviation from the average flow rate and is expressed as a percentage. The parameter can be: sales (quantity), the amount of sales, and the amount of sales of trade margin. The result of XYZ-analysis is grouping products into three categories based on the stability of their behavior:
Category X, which products fall with fluctuations in sales of 5% to 15%. It products are characterized by stable quantity of consumption and a high degree of forecasting (Waszkiewicz, Buliński & Buraczewski, 2012, 94).
Category Y, which gets the goods with fluctuating sales from 15% to 50%. These are the goods, which are characterized by seasonal fluctuations and average capacity of their forecasting (Waszkiewicz, Buliński & Buraczewski, 2012, 94).
Category Z, in which the products fall with fluctuations in sales of 50% and higher. It products with irregular and unpredictable fluctuations in consumption, so it is impossible to forecast their demand (Waszkiewicz, Buliński & Buraczewski, 2012, 94).
Finally, the fifth factor is actual conclusion of the report and analysis made before. It should emphasis on the very main data of the report and conclude whether that 4 year period can be considered as successful one or not, so then the further strategies will be applied.
Sales Report will assess the situation in the department to attract customers. Based on its data, you can make a plan for further work and to optimize the process. The first paragraph of the report must specify the planned sales in the previous 4 years. How many new customers the company had to draw and how much money should be got from permanent ones. Next you need to specify the actual parameters. Calculate the percentage of how the actual sales values exceeded the plan. If it has not been executed - how much was not enough to the expected figures. The most convenient way to make the schedule is to divide it for weeks. It will be immediately clear to which period sales rose, but some - have fallen. Write why managers did not cope with task. Perhaps the figures were inflated, and they are not physically able to attract sufficient number of customers. Or department is inefficient, wasting a large amount of work on registration of contracts and the settlement of disputes.
References
Collignon, J. (2012). ABC ANALYSIS (INVENTORY). LOKAD. Retrieved from http://www.lokad.com/abc-analysis-(inventory)-definition
Lavinsky, D. (2014). Pareto Principle: How To Use It To Dramatically Grow Your Business.Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2014/01/20/pareto-principle-how-to-use-it-to-dramatically-grow-your-business/
Waszkiewicz, C., Buliński, J., & Buraczewski, P. (2012). Utilization of ABC/XYZ analysis in stock planning in the enterprise (pp. 89–96). Warsaw: Wydział Inżynierii Produkcji SGGW.
