Viewing Sales Information by Category

To view sales data by category types, run the Sales Category Inquiry. You can view sales in a number of different ways, such as customer type, by sales representative, or by a variety of different product selection methods. You can view revenue, costs, gross profit dollars, or gross profit percentages. In addition, you can compare any of these values between months, quarters, or years to help you analyze the growth or decline of various markets.

To view sales information for a specific category:

  1. From the Reports > Management Inquiries menu, select Sales Category Inquiry to display the Sales Category Inquiry window.

  2. In the Br/Tr/All field, enter the codes that identify the branches or territories for which to view sales and gross profit data. Enter commas between codes. To view data for all branches, enter ALL.

  3. In the Display field, enter one of the following values:

  1. In the Date field, enter the date as of which to view the sales data. The default is today's date.

  2. In the Category field, enter one of the following values:

  1. In the Sales Type field, enter one of the following values to determine the type of sales data to view:

Note: Because miscellaneous charge items have no cost associated with them, they tend to artificially distort the profit margin upward. For this reason, they are excluded from the calculations.

  1. Click Update to display sales data based on your selection criteria.

  2. For your selected sales category, review the following information in each column, as needed:

Column

Description

<Sales Category>

The values for the category you selected in the Category field. For example, if you selected Product Budget Group, all of your sales budget group IDs display.

Month

Shows data according to the value you selected in the Sales Type field for the month you entered in the Date field.

YTD

Shows data according to the value you selected in the Sales Type field for the year up to the date you entered in the Date field.

Last YTD

Shows data according to the value you selected in the Sales Type field for the year before the year you entered in the Date field.

% Change

The percentage of increase or decrease in sales between the year you entered in the Date field and the previous year.

  1. When you have finished viewing information, exit the window.

More Options for Working With Sales Information

The Sales Category Inquiry window also offers these options:

To...

Do this...

view a graphical representation of the data in the table

From the File menu, select Create Graph

The Graph Options for Sales Category Inquiry dialog box displays.

export the data to an Excel spreadsheet

From the File menu, select Save as Excel

The Save dialog box displays.

print the table

From the File menu, select Print Table

The Print Table dialog box displays.

select alternate column views

Click the magnifying glass next to the columns and select an option.

sort the columns

Click a column to sort the data by that column.

See Also:

Management Inquiries Overview

Comparing Monthly or Yearly Customer-Specific Sales