TimeForge Sales includes a powerful Sales Analytics tool, designed to easily visualize the differences in labor costs, a manager's sales categories (such as gross labor, customer covers, customer counts, or inventory items), and other relevant numerical information. Watching for trends in the numbers will allow management to be proactive in creating business decisions.
There are two ways to access the Sales Analytics tool in TimeForge. Either through the employee schedule page, or through the "Sales Analytics" page.
Go to the "Analytics" page
- Log in
- Hover over the "Sales" tab
- Click "Analytics"
Note: If you know which schedule you would like to analyze, you can use the following step.
Option 2: Analyze from the employee schedule page
Employee schedules can be analyzed and compared to Manager Projections, Actual Values, or System Generated Forecasts.
This is the other way to access the Sales Analytics tool, which is reached by using the list of schedules, and clicking on "Analyze."
Sales Analytics with employee schedules
Follow the instructions on the Sales Analytics page, choose the desired Sales Category, and any other applicable options from the left-hand column.
1. Choose which type of chart to display. You can select either Data Analysis, Staffing Sales, Staffing Cost, or Threshold.
2. Input the start and end time that the chart should display.
3. Select the sales category you want to appear on the chart.
4. Decide if you want manager projections on the chart.
5. Select which schedules need to be included on the chart.
6. Choose how the graph is broken down, either by day, or all the way down to 15 minute increments.
The software will build a visual chart, allowing you to graphically compare Manager Projections, System Generated Forecasts, and the Actual numbers against employee work schedules.
Sales analytics - Labor Costs
The above graph is a sample employee schedule from 10:00am - 5:00pm, and the Sales Analytics tool is displaying the cost of labor (in purple), as well as the Manager Projection (in blue) for the same time period. Employee schedules can be combined, or graphed separately, based on your requirements (1).
Note: The labor costs purple line stay flat, while the blue Sales Type line (Gross Sales in this case) goes up and down. This may indicate that some staff should be sent home when the blue line goes down sharply, and staff members should be brought in when the line goes up sharply.
Sales analytics - Scheduled Shifts
The same graph as above is displayed, but this graph compares the Sales Type with the Scheduled Shifts during the time period, instead of Labor Costs.
Tip: Scheduled Shifts are indicative of the number of unique shifts scheduled during the time period. Just like the Labor Costs, sharply increasing or decreasing lines may indicate a need to change the schedule.