The Daily Sales Report is probably the most commonly used report in FloristWare. You should really be printing it out every single day.

Many florists have their own cash-out and daily sales summary sheets that have evolved over the years, and they are often very attached to them. It is sometimes hard for them to make the switch to the FloristWare Daily Sales Report.

Change is always hard, and when it involves something as important and familiar as your Daily Sales Report it can be even more scary.

However, you really should give the FloristWare Daily Sales Report a try. If you use it the way it is designed you will find that it is very effective and can save you a lot of time.

As you know, when making sales the payment method is sometimes recorded incorrectly. A sale charged to a Mastercard may accidentally be recorded as being charged to a Visa or Debit card, etc. This means that the payment figures in your daily sales report will not match the actual payments collected.

Because this is such a common problem the FloristWare includes a powerful feature that can help you balance the payments recorded in your Daily Sales Reports. You can correct errors of this type before you print your daily sales report and try to balance it.

To get started go to the 'Payments' section of your Daily Sales Report. You will see a small orange button near the bottom of the screen. Clicking this button shows you all of the payments made during the day specified at the top right-hand corner of your screen.

The information in the report is organized into columns and rows. Each row contains the information for one payment. You can now change the method of each payment using the pull-down menu in it's row. It's that simple!

There are three things that you should keep in mind when balancing payments in this way:

1. Never Change the Payment Method From 'Account'!
If you originally recorded a payment as being charged to an account and then change it to something else it will not be removed from the customer's balance owing. FloristWare will not let you change payments to 'Account' for similar reasons - the amount would not be added to a customer's balance owing.

2. Be Very Careful!
Make only changes you are sure about - things can become very messy if you get careless.

3. Keep Track of the Changes
We also suggest that you keep track of any changes you make (using pen and paper) until you get the report balanced. While you can always change sales back, FloristWare does not keep track of the changes you are making so you cannot just 'Undo' them.

We're thinking about a new reporting feature and we'd like to get some feedback from our users.

As you know, FloristWare tries to create a Daily Sales Report each night when you close down. This report does a great job of showing you what happened in your store during the day.

We are thinking about adding a new feature that would allow FloristWare to automatically e-mail the Daily Sales Report (in pdf) format as soon as it is generated.

It could be sent to as many people as you like. The idea is that your Daily Sales Report could be sent to the owner, manager, and possibly the accountant or bookkeeper to help them keep on top of things. It would be especially helpful if you are on vacation and want to receive updates of what is happening in your store each day.

Please let us know what you think!

As you may know FloristWare Version 2.0 includes a built-in employee timeclock that automatically keeps track of the hours worked and wages earned by each employee.

This information is summarized on the "Punchclock Report" which can be generated just like any other report. It is a real timesaver when you are doing payroll.

For more information please search for "timeclock" in the Support Library.

The AdTracker report allows you to monitor how well your various advertising campaigns are working for you. The idea is to improve sales by concentrating your advertising budget on the types of advertising that are most effective.

Here is how it works. In the AdTracker section of your settings you will enter all of your "Campaigns". These can be anything from a yellow pages ad to spots on the local radio station. Then, each time you make a sale, you will ask the customer which of these campaigns prompted them to make a purchase and then enter their response into FloristWare.

Then, once a month or so, you will generate the AdTracker report. It will show you the number and total value of sales generated by each campaign. You can also enter the cost of each campaign - so in the case of a yellow pages ad you would enter the cost of running the ad for the month.

FloristWare will then show you how effective each campaign is by showing you how many dollars in sales each campaign generated in return for each dollar spent.

As we mentioned the idea is to advertise most effectively. If you have efforts that are not working for you we suggest spending less on them and more on the efforts that are effective. You want to concentrate your advertising budget on the types of advertising that give you the biggest possible return on your investment.

There is one report in FloristWare that you will hopefully never have to use. If however the need does arise it will prove to be very helpful.

The Suspicious Activity report is used to make you aware of any employee activity that FloristWare considers suspicious. More specifically, it is designed to show you transactions that may indicate an employee is stealing from you.

If an employee wants to steal from you, the easiest approach is just to take cash from the drawer. While this is easy for them to accomplish, it's also easy for you to spot - when you cash out each night you will notice that cash is missing!

A more clever and determined can however use several different approaches to mask their theft. In other words they can do certain things to cover up the fact that they are stealing. This is troubling because everything will appear to balance when you cash out. You won't be immediately aware that any money is missing.

This is where the Suspicious Activity report comes in. Just generate this report for any period you wish and it will show you all of the suspicious activity that occurred during that period, as well as in-depth descriptions of each type of activity and suggestions on how you can respond.

FloristWare Version 2.0 includes a vastly improved Daily Sales Report.

One change involves the way that the data is grouped. All of the accounting information now appears on one page and all of the performance information appears on another. This makes the report easier to understand.

Another change involves the way Accounts Receivable information is presented. You know see the total value of sales charged to account, total value of payments received on account, and the net change in your total accounts receivable.

Deferred payments are now handled in a similar fashion. You know see the total value of "deferred payment" sales, total value of deferred payments received, and the net change in your total deferred payments.

There are several other enhancements. Early feedback has shown that the new and improved Daily Sales Report in FloristWare Version 2.0 makes keeping track of what is happening in your store and taking care of accounting easier and more intuitive than ever.

Many of you use the "Defer Payment" feature quite often. It is a very handy tool and can make life much easier. The only trick is making sure that you get paid for all those sales!

That's the problem - it's easy to "forget" about a Deferred Payment sale and not collect payment. This is why FloristWare allows you to create a "Deferred Payment" report. It shows you all of the payments that were deferred, the date they were deferred, the customer's name and all of their phone numbers. The idea is that you take this list and start calling the customers who still owe you for deferred payment sales.

Running this report is easy - simply enter at the Manager level, go to the Reports section and choose "Deferred Payments Report". It is a good idea to print it out and keep it by the phone to work at whenever you have time - just keep calling the people that owe you money.

You should run this report at least once a month. Once every two weeks is better and every week is better still - especially if you do a lot of deferred payment sales. It is a fact that the longer you allow an invoice to sit unpaid the less chance you have of getting paid. Stay on top of these deferred payments!

FloristWare now gives you the opportunity to set up different printers for Worksheets, Receipts, Statements, and more.

To change your printer settings, go to Settings -> Features -> Printer Settings
Select a report, choose your printer, paper size, and paper source.

You can also change printers 'on the fly', simply hold down your SHIFT key while clicking the PRINT button in FloristWare. You'll see the Printers windows and can select your printer, and make any other printer output settings.

Need help? Call our support line at 1.888.531.3012

A discussion of the elements of planning and implementing a successful points-based incentive/loyalty program can be found in the public articles section of our website.

Earlier in the week I spoke with a user that was not printing the cash-out sheet as part of the Daily Sales Report. Instead they were reconciling payments to receipts - a much more complicated way of getting the same result.

Users are strongly encouraged to print the cash-out sheet each day and just balance to that. It's quick and easy and gives you everything you need.