Statistics categories, also known as statistics groups, are organizational tools that help you filter items on certain reports. You can add statistics categories to entire accounting groups or to individual items, depending on your specific reporting goals. Learn more about statistics categories below and add some to your Back Office to enhance your reporting capabilities.

Understanding statistics categories

Learn about how statistics categories work and consider how you’ll use them in your Lightspeed Restaurant account to optimize your reporting processes.

Overview

• Statistics categories (also called statistics groups) help you sort and analyze data, offering clear insights into sales trends, item popularity, and inventory management.
• You can add one or more statistics categories to your accounting groups or to individual menu items. Each method has different benefits and can be used in combination with each other.
• When adding a statistics category, you’ll also define a value or tag for the accounting group or item. The value / tag offers a finer level of categorization within the broader statistics category.
• Statistics categories are used solely for reporting and don’t have other properties, such as taxes, assigned to them.

About accounting group statistics categories

Add statistics categories to your accounting groups if you only want to create new combinations of items for analysis on the Product Mix Report.

For example, accounting groups called Alcohol and Soft drinks might have a statistics category called Beverage. Within the Beverage statistics category, each accounting group has a different value / tag: Alcoholic and Non-alcoholic. This categorization allows you to see a more detailed breakdown in your reports, enabling better decision-making regarding product offerings and sales strategies.

About item statistics categories

Add statistics categories to individual menu items in situations where:

• Items within the same accounting group require different statistics categories.
• You're using the Inventory module. 
• There's a need to create new combinations of items for analysis on the Product Mix Report.

For example, two items called Burger and Burger (gluten free) belong to an accounting group called Hot food. You might have statistics categories called Gluten free and Non-gluten free to separate each type of item for analysis.

Adding statistics categories

Statistics categories can be added in two different ways: by applying them to individual items or to accounting groups. Not sure which method to use? Re-read the previous section of this article.

Adding accounting group statistics categories

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Menu management > Accounting groups.
3. Click Edit next to an accounting group row.

   

4. In the Statistic categories section, enter or search for your desired Category and Value.

   

5. (Optional) Click the + and repeat step 4 to add additional statistics categories.
6. Click Save to save changes.

Adding item statistics categories

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Menu management > Items.
3. Click the name of an item to edit.
4. Select the Reporting tab.
5. Click Add a statistics category.

   

6. Enter or search for your desired Category and Tag.

   

7. (Optional) Click Add row and repeat step 6 to add additional statistics categories.
8. Click Save to save changes to the statistics group(s).
9. Click Save again to save changes to the item.

Reporting on statistics categories

Utilize these reports to fully leverage the data gathered through statistics categories. There is different reporting available for accounting group versus item-level statistics categories.

Reports with accounting group statistics categories

Product Mix report

The Product Mix Report displays sales by different groupings, such as by product or by account profile. It allows sorting by statistics category and by value / tag for both accounting groups and individual items.

Reports with item statistics categories

Discrepancy report for Inventory module

The Discrepancy report compares your theoretical stock levels with your most recent stock count. You can sort or filter by item-level statistics categories using spreadsheet software, but you cannot filter by values / tags.

Purchase report for Inventory module

The Purchase report tracks historical inventory purchases that you've made from your suppliers. You can filter by item-level statistics categories and also by values / tags.

Items export

The items export lists all of your menu items in a spreadsheet. Item-level statistics categories and values / tags appear on this report joined together in the same column. Using spreadsheet software, you can filter or sort by each category + value / tag combination.

Product Mix report

The Product Mix Report gives an overview of sales by different groupings, such as by product or account profile. It allows sorting by statistics categories and by value / tag for both accounting groups and individual items.

What's next?