Operational - Labour Percent Sales
Updated Fri 30 Oct 2026
Running the report
Report options
Select your start date and end date
The first and last trading day to include. Both default to today. The report always works in whole trading days, see How the figures are worked out.
Filter by user type
Choose whose wages and whose sales you want to compare. The default is All employees with all sales.
With Waiters with lounge and table orders only waiters' wages are compared with lounge and table sales. With Drivers with delivery orders only drivers' wages are compared with delivery sales.
Show time of day as
How the day is cut up. The default is Time slots.
Time slots groups the day into eight three-hour slots such as Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Hours shows every hour of the trading day, which is handy for fine-tuning when shifts start and end.
The report at a glance
The dates are trading days. A trading day in this report always runs from 06:00 to 06:00, so the period above covers Monday 5 October from 06:00 until Tuesday 6 October at 06:00. The asterisk points to the note at the bottom of every page that explains this.
- Summary and warnings: the selected options, total labour cost, total sales and labour % for the whole period.
- Chart: labour % by time of day, one line per day of the week.
- Detail table: every day and time slot with its staff hours, labour cost, sales and labour %, then a total per day and a grand total.
- How the figures are worked out: the notes printed at the end of the report.
Summary and warnings
Under the header you see the options you chose (EMPLOYEES and TIME OF DAY SHOWN AS), then three totals for the whole period.
| Labour cost | Turnover (excl. taxes) | Labour % of turnover |
|---|---|---|
| R 5 640.00 | R 26 450.00 | 21.3% |
- Labour cost
- Every clocked hour of every employee with an hourly wage, multiplied by that wage.
- Turnover (excl. taxes)
- Your sales for the same period without any tax added.
- Labour % of turnover
- Labour cost divided by turnover. It is green at 30% or less, amber above 30% and red above 40%. It shows No sales when there was labour but no sales, and >100% when labour cost is more than the sales.
Two warnings can appear below the totals:
Chart
Labour % of turnover by time of day has one line for each day of the week and one point for each time slot (or hour). A spike means a lot of staff were on the clock for the sales in that slot. Anything above 100% is drawn at 100% so one very quiet slot does not flatten all the other lines. The chart only shows slots inside your trading hours that had labour or sales on at least one day.
Detail table
Detail by day and time slot (or Detail by day and hour) has one block per day of the week. Each row adds up that time slot over all the days in your period. A Monday block over a four-week period therefore adds up four Mondays, and the Days column tells you how many.
| Time slot | Times | Days | Invoices | Staff hours | Labour cost | Turnover excl. | Labour % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | |||||||
| Breakfast | 06:00 - 09:00 | 1 | 12 | 9.0 | 540.00 | 1 850.00 | 29.2% |
| Mid-morning | 09:00 - 12:00 | 1 | 20 | 15.0 | 900.00 | 3 400.00 | 26.5% |
| Lunch | 12:00 - 15:00 | 1 | 41 | 21.0 | 1 260.00 | 7 200.00 | 17.5% |
| Afternoon 2 | 15:00 - 18:00 | 1 | 18 | 12.0 | 720.00 | 2 100.00 | 34.3% |
| Dinner | 18:00 - 21:00 | 1 | 47 | 24.0 | 1 440.00 | 9 600.00 | 15.0% |
| Late evening | 21:00 - 00:00 | 1 | 15 | 9.0 | 540.00 | 2 300.00 | 23.5% |
| Outside trading hours (08:00 to 22:00) 1 | 1 | 0 | 4.0 | 240.00 | 0.00 | No sales | |
| Monday total 3 | 94.0 | 5 640.00 | 26 450.00 | 21.3% | |||
| Grand total | 94.0 | 5 640.00 | 26 450.00 | 21.3% | |||
1 Outside trading hours
Labour and sales that fall outside your opening times, such as staff clocked in early to prepare or late to clean up, are grouped into one Outside trading hours line per day with your opening times in brackets. This keeps the totals complete. Here four hours of preparation cost R 240.00 and had no sales, so it shows No sales in red.
2 Labour % colours
Green is 30% or less, amber is above 30% and red is above 40% or labour with no sales at all. In the example the Afternoon slot is amber: R 720.00 of labour against R 2 100.00 of sales is 34.3%.
3 Day total and grand total
Each day ends with a total of its staff hours, labour cost and turnover and the labour % of those totals. The Grand total at the bottom adds up every day. The labour % of a total is worked out from the totals, it is not an average of the rows above it.
Slots with no staff on the clock and no sales are left out of the table. With Hours the table has one row per hour (for example 06:00, 07:00) instead of the named slots, and the Times column shows the hour range.
- Days
- How many of that weekday fall in your period.
- Invoices
- The number of paid, not voided invoices in that slot.
- Staff hours
- Hours clocked in by employees with an hourly wage, split across the slots.
How the figures are worked out
The trading day and the time slots
In this report the day always runs from 06:00 to 06:00 in your store's local time, so a sale at 01:00 on a Saturday night belongs to Saturday Late night, not to Sunday. The eight time slots are:
| Time slot | Times |
|---|---|
| Breakfast | 06:00 - 09:00 |
| Mid-morning | 09:00 - 12:00 |
| Lunch | 12:00 - 15:00 |
| Afternoon | 15:00 - 18:00 |
| Dinner | 18:00 - 21:00 |
| Late evening | 21:00 - 00:00 |
| Late night | 00:00 - 03:00 |
| Early morning | 03:00 - 06:00 |
Labour cost
Each shift is split across the slots it covers. A shift from 10:00 to 16:00 counts 2 hours in Mid-morning, 3 in Lunch and 1 in Afternoon, each multiplied by the employee's hourly wage. A shift is the time between clocking in and clocking out. If someone forgot to clock out, the report uses their last till activity that day. If someone used the till without clocking in, the report uses their first and last till activity. If an employee was clocked in twice at the same time, for example on two devices, the hours are only counted once.
Turnover
Turnover is the sales of your paid, not voided invoices without tax, placed in the slot in which the invoice was created.
Trading hours
Only the slots that fall inside your store's opening times are listed one by one, the rest are grouped under Outside trading hours.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a slot say "No sales" in red?
Staff were clocked in during that slot but no sales were made, so there is nothing to divide the labour cost by. This is common in the hours before you open and after you close, and it shows up in the Outside trading hours line.
Why do my sales after midnight show under the previous day?
The trading day in this report runs from 06:00 to 06:00. A sale at 01:00 on Sunday morning is part of Saturday night's trade, so it is counted under Saturday Late night.
Why is the date at the top different from the dates I picked?
You pick trading days, and the report prints the exact period it covers, from 06:00 on your first day until 06:00 the day after your last day. The asterisk points to the note at the bottom of the page.
Why does it warn me that employees have no hourly wage?
Those employees were clocked in during the period but their profile has no hourly wage, or a wage of zero. Their hours are not costed, so the labour % is too low. Set their hourly wage and run the report again.
Why does it show ">100%" and why does the chart stop at 100%?
When labour costs more than the sales in that slot, for example a cleaner on shift while nothing is sold, the percentage can be very high. The table shows >100% and the chart draws it at 100% so the other lines stay readable.
Why does the labour cost not match my payroll?
The report multiplies clocked hours by each employee's current hourly wage. It does not include overtime rates, bonuses, tips, leave, employer costs or anything else on your payroll, and employees without an hourly wage are left out.
What if someone forgot to clock out?
The report uses the last time that person did something on the till that day. If there was no other activity, the shift counts as zero hours, so a forgotten clock-out never creates a very long shift. Ask the employee to clock out, or correct the time clock, for more exact figures.
Why is a day shown with no rows?
If nobody was clocked in and nothing was sold on that day of the week, there is nothing to list and the totals show a dash.
Glossary
- Days
- How many of that weekday are in your period.
- Hours
- A way of showing the day, one row for every hour of the trading day.
- Labour %
- Labour cost divided by turnover, shown as a percentage. Green at 30% or less, amber above 30%, red above 40%.
- Labour cost
- Clocked hours multiplied by the employee's hourly wage.
- Outside trading hours
- One line per day for labour and sales that fall outside your store's opening times.
- Staff hours
- The number of hours employees with an hourly wage were clocked in.
- Time slot
- A three-hour part of the trading day, such as Breakfast or Dinner.
- Trading day
- In this report, the day from 06:00 to 06:00 in your store's local time.
- Turnover (excl. taxes)
- Sales of paid, not voided invoices without tax.