A Z report is your register’s end-of-day report: the final totals for the day’s sales, taxes and payments. Most registers and point-of-sale apps also offer an X report, and the difference comes down to one word: reset. An X report is a look at the day so far. A Z report closes the day. Here’s what each one shows, when to run it, and what to do with it.
What is an X report?
An X report is a mid-shift snapshot of your sales since the last close. It shows the running totals, such as sales, discounts, refunds, tax and payments by method, without changing anything. You can run it as many times as you like.
Typical reasons to run an X report:
- checking how the day is going at lunchtime,
- handing over the drawer at a shift change,
- counting the cash partway through the day to make sure it matches,
- answering “how much have we done today?” without closing anything.
What is a Z report?
A Z report is the end-of-day report. It records the final totals for a period, usually one business day, and on a traditional cash register it resets the running totals to zero so the next day starts fresh. That reset is where the name is usually said to come from: Z for zero.
A Z report normally includes:
- Gross sales, before discounts and refunds
- Discounts given
- Refunds and voids
- Net sales
- Tax collected
- Tips, if you take them
- Totals by payment method: cash, card, gift card and so on
- the number of transactions
X report vs Z report at a glance
- When: an X report runs any time during the day. A Z report runs once, at close.
- Reset: an X report changes nothing. On a traditional register, a Z report resets the totals.
- How often: as many X reports as you want; one Z report per business day.
- Used for: X reports for checking in and shift handovers; Z reports for closing out, reconciling cash and bookkeeping.
Why the Z report matters
Reconciling the cash drawer
The cash total on the Z report is what should be in the drawer beyond your starting float, give or take cash paid out during the day. Count the drawer, compare, and record the difference. Our guide to balancing a cash drawer walks through it, and you can print our free cash drawer count sheet to do the count.
Matching card payments
Compare the card total on the Z report with what your card processor reports for the same day. If they don’t match, a sale was probably rung up with the wrong payment method.
Bookkeeping and sales tax
Z reports are a daily record of what you sold and how much tax you collected. Keep them. When you file sales tax, or your accountant asks about a particular week, they are the numbers you’ll need.
Do you need to run a Z report every day?
On a traditional cash register, yes: if you skip it, the next day’s sales pile on top of today’s and the totals no longer describe a single day. Some businesses are also required to keep daily sales records for tax reasons.
Many app-based point-of-sale systems don’t need a manual reset, because every sale is stored with its date and time. The “Z report” is simply the report for a chosen day, and you can pull it again later.
Common Z report problems
- Cash is short or over. Recount first, then check for change mistakes, unrecorded cash refunds or cash taken out for supplies.
- Card total doesn’t match the processor. Look for sales recorded as cash that were paid by card, or the other way round.
- Refunds look high. Check whether a sale was refunded twice, or whether a void was used instead of a refund.
- The day looks too big. On an old register, a missed Z report from yesterday is the usual cause.
Z reports in SleepingFire
In SleepingFire there’s nothing to reset. Pick any date and the Z-report shows gross sales, discounts, refunds, tax and tips, broken down by payment method, and you can download it as a PDF to print or file. Pair it with the shift cash count, which works out the expected cash in the drawer for you. See the reports.