5 H&L Reports Every Hospitality Operator Should Be Running
Most H&L Sysnet users have access to powerful reporting built directly into the system. These five reports give operators a clear picture of revenue, profitability, and stock performance. Most venues are only a few clicks away from using them properly.
Author
Owen Rockley
Published
H&L’s Sysnet POS contains a comprehensive suite of management reports. Most hospitality operators have access to them as part of their existing setup, but in my experience, the majority of venues are only using a small portion of what is available.
These five reports are ones I regularly walk clients through during system reviews. They cover revenue, profitability, stock performance, and trading patterns. Together they give an operator a clear picture of how the business is actually performing.
1. Revenue Breakdown Report Current (Shows Profit)
This is the report I usually start with when reviewing a venue’s financial position. It provides a complete summary of revenue broken down by location or venue, and it includes cost of sales and gross profit alongside the sales figures.
The report shows total sales including and excluding tax, reportable revenue, tax payable, cost of sales, and gross profit in both dollar and percentage terms. It is designed to be used by Operations Management and Company Directors as a high-level financial overview of trading.
You can find it via Sysnet Toolbar > Processing > Print > Revenue Breakdown > Current (Shows Profit).
One of the more useful features is that this report can be set to print automatically at the end of trading periods, which means operators do not need to remember to run it manually each day.
2. Time Sales Report
The Time Sales report breaks down venue activity by hour of the day, giving operators a clear picture of when the business is busiest and where quieter periods are occurring.
The Summary sub-report includes a graphical bar chart showing sales across the trading day, which makes it easy to identify trading patterns at a glance. The key metrics include total sales, sales excluding tax, profit, profit percentage, customer counts, average sale value, and a recommended staffing figure.
Beyond the Summary, the Time Sales report includes several sub-reports: Analysis, Average Sales, Revenue Groups, PLU, Users, and Tenders. This means you can drill into specific areas depending on what you are trying to understand.
The practical application here is rostering. If you can see that the venue is consistently quiet between certain hours, or that customer counts spike at a specific time, you can build your staffing schedule around actual trading data rather than estimates.
This report can also be configured to print automatically as part of a daily routine.
3. PLU Profit Report
The PLU Profit Report provides profitability information at the individual product level, broken down by Location and PLU Group. This is the report to use when you want to understand which menu items are actually contributing to profit rather than simply generating revenue.
For each product, the report shows the unit cost, average selling price including tax, quantity sold, total value sold, expected cost of sales, and profit in both dollar and percentage terms.
One feature that is particularly useful is the ability to set a recommended gross profit percentage for each PLU Group. When this is configured, the report highlights any products not meeting the target in colour, making it easy to identify problem areas without manually reviewing every line.
You can find it via Sysnet Toolbar > Reports Menu > Stock > Sales Stock (PLU) > PLU Profit Report (Standard).
This report works well as part of an end-of-month review, particularly alongside the Cost of Goods Report.
4. Stock Performance Report
The Stock Performance report shows the best and worst performing products across the venue based on sales activity. Unlike some of the other reports, it also includes inventory information alongside the sales data.
The columns include quantity sold, value sold, profit in dollar terms, profit percentage, average quantity sold per day, current on-hand quantity, and days on hand based on current sales velocity.
This combination of sales and stock data is what makes it particularly useful. It allows operators to assess not just which products are selling, but how long current stock will last before it needs to be reordered.
You can find it via Sysnet Toolbar > Reports Menu > Stock > Stock > Stock Performance.
5. Stock Profit Report
The Stock Profit report analyses profitability at the stock item level rather than at the PLU level. Because it operates at a higher level of the product hierarchy, it can surface issues that are not visible in the PLU Profit report.
The report shows quantity sold, value of sales, cost of sales, and gross margin in both dollar and percentage terms. It is a theoretical report and does not account for stock losses arising from discrepancies or wastage. It only shows items that have recorded sales activity.
You can find it via Sysnet Toolbar > Reports > Stock > Stock > Stock Profit Report.
Because it works at the stock item level rather than the PLU level, it is useful for identifying where profitability is being affected by recipe or costing issues rather than just by selling price or volume.
Report Templates: A Feature Most Operators Do Not Know Exists
One of the most underutilised features in H&L’s reporting suite is Report Templates.
Most management reports in Sysnet include filter options: date ranges, locations, product groups, sort orders, and similar settings. Every time you run a report, you typically need to set these filters again from scratch. Report Templates allow you to save your preferred filter settings as a named template, so the next time you open that report, your settings are already applied.
You can set a Default Template that loads automatically whenever the report is opened. For reports you run on a regular schedule (weekly sales analysis, monthly profitability reviews, daily stock checks), this removes the repetitive setup work and ensures the report is run consistently with the same parameters each time.
To save a template, open the report, set your preferred filters, then select the Templates icon and choose Save Filters As to give the template a name.
For venues operating across multiple sites using Syswan, templates can be pushed out to remote sites, ensuring consistent reporting settings across the group.
Automating Your Reports
Several of these reports can be configured to run and print automatically as part of H&L’s End of Shift or End of Day process. This means the reports are produced consistently at the close of every shift or trading day without requiring manual intervention from staff.
If you are not currently using automated report printing and would like assistance with the setup, get in touch and I am happy to walk you through it.
Dynamic Reports
If you would like to view data across multiple days, weeks, or months in a single report, Rockley Consulting can design and provide custom Dynamic Reports built as Excel Pivot Tables, drawing data directly from the local H&L SQL database. These give operators a flexible way to analyse trading activity across custom date ranges within a familiar spreadsheet environment. Get in touch if this is something you would find useful.
The five reports above are a good starting point for any operator who wants to move beyond basic sales data and build a clearer picture of what is actually happening inside their business.
If you would like help reviewing your current reporting setup or getting more out of your H&L system, I am happy to assist.