Perfect Your Scheduling: The Hourly Sales & Labor Report ⏰📊
Managing a busy restaurant means catching massive rush periods while ensuring your staff isn't standing around during slow afternoon dips. The Hourly Sales & Labor Report is designed to answer one crucial question: "Hour by hour, how did sales build through the shift — and did our labor track with it?"
This report plots your revenue and labor costs side-by-side across every active hour of service, giving you a time-based view of how your day unfolded. It is the ultimate tool for understanding your busiest and softest hours, evaluating your staffing decisions in hindsight, and building better schedules going forward!
📊 What You'll See on the Report
The data is organized into up to three clean, easy-to-read tables depending on your configuration, keeping the default view focused entirely on your core summary.
Table 1 — Hourly Sales Summary ⏳
(Always included in the report)
This table gives you one row per hour, from the first check opened to the very last, showing how your sales and labor built cumulatively across the entire shift.
Table 2 — Hourly Sales by Employee 👥
(Automatically displays when specific employees are selected in the filters)
A smart pivot table that shows one row per hour and one column per selected employee, detailing each person's net sales for that hour. It is excellent for comparing individual productivity at different points in the shift!
Table 3 — Hourly Labor by Job 🧑🍳
(Automatically displays when specific job roles are selected in the filters)
A secondary pivot table with one row per hour and one column per selected job title, showing the precise labor cost incurred for each role per hour, derived directly from time card payroll data.
📖 Column Definitions: What the Numbers Mean
To help you digest your time-based analytics, here is what each column tracks:
Sales: The net sales generated from checks that were officially opened during that specific hour.
Cumulative Sales: A running total of net sales from the moment your doors opened through that specific hour.
Labor Cost: The actual wages incurred during that hour across all clocked-in employee time cards.
Cumulative Labor: A running total of your labor costs accumulated from opening through that hour.
Labor %: Calculated automatically as Labor Cost ÷ Sales for that individual hour. This shows you exactly which hours are labor-efficient and which are not!
🛠️ Strategic Ways to Use This Data
Transform your time-stamped restaurant data into automated scheduling wins with these quick strategies:
Identify Your True Rush: The Sales column makes your peak hours instantly visible. The hour-over-hour pattern reveals not just when you get busy, but how fast your floor volume builds and how quickly it drops off—giving you the perfect data to schedule staggered staff start and end times.
Track Labor Efficiency by Hour: A high Labor % during a slow hour (like 2:00 PM–4:00 PM) flags clear over-staffing for that period. Conversely, a low Labor % during your dinner peak confirms your staffing successfully held up to customer demand without leaving the floor too lean.
Monitor Cumulative Benchmarks: The cumulative tracking columns give you a continuous, real-time picture of where your business stood at any point in the shift. If your team has a daily sales target, you can pinpoint the exact hour you crossed the finish line!
Spot Day-of-Week Patterns: Use the Days of Week filter to run a report across a wide date range but aggregate only specific days (like Fridays only). This reveals your typical Friday hourly shape, which provides a far more reliable baseline for scheduling than looking at any single Friday in isolation!
Optimize Employee Productivity Windows: The Hourly Sales by Employee table shows exactly when your individual servers are generating their highest sales. Use this data to align your strongest, fastest team members with your highest-volume rush hours.
Audit Job Cost Windows: The Hourly Labor by Job table reveals exactly when each role's labor cost is hitting your budget. This makes it simple to evaluate whether the overlap between your peak sales hours and your highest-cost roles is justified.
🎛️ Filters Available
You can seamlessly filter the data in the NX Portal to customize your view:
Days of Week: Aggregate only the hours from specific days (e.g., Fridays only, or weekdays only) across your full date range selection.
Order Types: Limit your sales data to focus purely on specific service types (like Dine In vs. Takeout).
Revenue Centers: Scope your data to a specific physical area of your building (such as the Bar floor or Main Dining Room).
Employees: Select specific employees to automatically generate the Hourly by Employee table.
Jobs: Select specific job titles to automatically generate the Hourly by Job table.
Need Help? 💡
Why is an item that was paid for at 2:00 PM showing up in the 1:00 PM column?
The report anchors sales data to the exact hour the guest check was initially opened, not when it was paid and closed. If a table sat down to eat at 1:45 PM and paid their bill at 2:30 PM, all of their sales volume will correctly log under the 1:00 PM hour slot.
Why am I seeing labor costs logged during hours when we weren't even open yet?
This is completely normal! If your morning prep team or kitchen crew clocks in at 9:00 AM to get ready for an 11:00 AM opening shift, those time cards will register active labor costs. This gives you an accurate view of your true pre-opening labor investments.