Visit Advanced Insights' Menu Reports to learn which menu items are popular with your guests. You can compare item sales between shifts, view an item’s recent sales history, or use these insights to help develop new items for your menu and refine your offerings.

There are two reports available under Menu reports: Item popularity and Magic menu quadrant.

Accessing the Menu reports

Access the Menu reports from the Advanced Insights dashboard in the Back Office.

1. Log in to the Back Office with your Lightspeed Restaurant credentials.
2. From the navigation menu, select Analytics > Advanced Insights.
3. Under the Menu header, click Item popularity or Magic menu quadrant.
4. Use the third dropdown on the Item popularity report or the second dropdown on the Magic menu quadrant, then choose a date range either manually or by clicking a preset option, like YTD or Last month.

To enter a manual date range:

1. Click the first date and enter your starting date.
2. Click the second date and enter your ending date.
3. Click Apply.

To filter by a preset date range:

1. Click a preset option.
2. Click Apply.

Understanding the Item popularity report

The Item popularity report displays the popularity of your menu items, sorted by most ordered to least ordered. Clicking an item will bring up the Item scorecard with more details. By default, the Item popularity report displays gross sales and items sold over the previous 7 days. Use the dropdowns to filter data to your specifications.

To view a specific item, use the search bar and enter the item's name.

Understanding the Magic menu quadrant

The Magic menu quadrant organizes your items into four categories: Hidden Gems, Greatest Hits, Underperformers, and One Hit Wonders. Use this data to gain comprehensive insight into an item’s performance over the last 12 months.

By default, the Magic menu quadrant report displays repeat visits over the previous month, within the first accounting group in the list. Accounting groups are listed alphabetically. Use the dropdowns to filter data to your specifications.

The four categories are measured by retention (the share of customers who return after ordering a menu item) and popularity (the total number of times a menu item is ordered at your restaurant). Click Show Names in the top right to display item names on the scatter graph. You can also click any quadrant to zoom in on it.

Clicking an item will bring up the Item scorecard with more details.

Magic menu quadrants

• Hidden Gems: Low popularity, high retention rate. These items are popular with a few customers but inspire guests to return to your restaurant. Consider refining their menu description or promoting them.
• One Hit Wonders: High popularity, low retention rate. Guests often order these items, but they don’t return after ordering them. This metric might indicate that an item seems appealing on the menu but needs improvement in its execution.
• Underperformers: Low popularity, low retention rate. These items are not popular with your customers. When they do sell, customers don’t return for more. These are items you might want to improve or remove from your menu altogether.
• Greatest Hits: High popularity, high retention rate. Customers frequently order these items and return for more. Try highlighting these options on your menu.

Hover over a dot to view an item's name, category on the Magic menu quadrant, Accounting group, ranking within its Accounting group, number of items sold, and retention rate.

Use an item's ranking within its Accounting group to judge how well the item is performing in both number of units sold and in retention rate. Items low in number of units sold but high in retention rate may be worth promoting more, as they bring customers back to the restaurant.

Understanding the Item scorecard

Use the Item scorecard popup to determine what time and day an item sells best, and which servers are selling that item. This information can help you determine employee schedules and the best times to offer specials or clear out inventory.

To access an item's scorecard, click on the item in either the Item popularity report or in the Magic menu quadrant.

By default, the Item scorecard displays an average from the past 3 months, but you can click the dropdown to change the display to Current period. This data will depend on your filters.

The detailed information always displays the Default price, but only users who have entered stock information in the Back Office will see data in Unit cost and Profit. To learn how to enter unit cost, refer to our page on Inventory.

• Best-selling day: Displays a breakdown of units sold of this item per day. Hover over a column on the graph to view details.
• Best-selling time: Displays a breakdown of units sold of this item per time of day. Hover over a column on the graph to view details.
• Top servers: Displays a breakdown of units sold of this item per server, as well as a calculation of the average amount sold by all servers.

Filtering the Menu reports

The Menu reports are generated using the default settings. For the Item popularity report, you can filter by gross or net sales, items sold or total sales, and accounting groups. For the Magic menu quadrant, you can filter by Repeat visits or Repeat orders and accounting groups.

Gross or Net sales

Use the first dropdown on the Item popularity report to sort your data by Gross or Net sales. Click the button for the filter you want to use and then click OK.

• Gross sales: The total of all sales and services, including discounts and taxes. Voids and refunds are excluded.
• Net sales: The total of all sales and services. Voids, refunds, discounts, and taxes are excluded.

Items sold or Total sales

Use the second dropdown on the Item popularity report to sort your items by Items sold or Total sales. Click the button for the filter you want to use and then click OK.

• Items sold: Sort your items by the number of each item sold.
• Total sales: Sort your items by the total amount in sales from that item.

Repeat visits or Repeat orders

Use the first dropdown on the Magic menu quadrant to sort your items by Repeat visits or Repeat orders. Click the button for the filter you want to use and then click OK.

• Repeat visits: Items that customers ordered on a first visit, and then returned for a subsequent visit. These customers may not order the same item again but likely enjoyed their meal enough to want to return.
• Repeat orders: Items that customers ordered on a first visit, and continue to order the same item on subsequent visits. These customers are likely to make steady visits, though they may not expand past their favorite items.

Lightspeed tracks repeat customers via credit card sales. Some customers will not want to be tracked. These customers will be able to opt out and will be treated as new customers even if they use the same credit card for future transactions.

Accounting groups

Check or uncheck the boxes to view data from all or specific accounting groups.

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