Saving Reports Suggestions

Good morning all!

I have a client that has a bar. Let me explain his case

Their working time is between 5pm and 5am usually. However, it is very often that they close the work period at 5am but a customer comes in and they start a new one to accommodate their customers until like 8am.

The issue client raised is that they want the entire report from 5pm - 8am instead of two separate reports from 5pm - 5am and 5am - 8am.

How can I automate this? Can I specify date range in save report i.e. {DATE1} <> {DATE2}? Should I switch over from 12pm - 12pm virtual work periods? Do virtual work periods trigger Work Period ended events (used for exporting reports)?

I think the best solution is not a SambaPOS one - just don’t end the work period until they are definitely closed, i.e. locked the door, no chance of new customers walking in. I think this is really a staff training issue that is best resolved that way rather than trying to create a solution around an issue caused by the staff.

Otherwise like you say, virtual work periods changing at 12pm. However virtual work periods do not trigger any event as they are not technically starting/ending a work period. You still need to end work period manually periodically in order to handle stock takes, etc. It was mentioned before here:

I agree with you from a tech perspective, but their operational side and how they run it. It is not something I can solve, and from my end “You need to train your staff” will be really difficult thing to sell.

I’d rather not argue over something I could potentially automate and then debate that this all I can do for them if they still have operational issues even after the update.

My point is though, you cannot solve every issue that is caused by staff. Sometimes I think it is a lot easier to just say to a customer “you should end the work period after you have closed, if you open the work period again, that is considered a new day on the system, you cannot join work periods”. Giving a “No it is not possible” answer (even whether technically it is or not), is honestly a lot less hassle than making a solution for something they can much easier solve themselves by just taking some responsibility for their actions.

Let’s say you create a way to join the work period for reporting, who is to say that later on, they will want to join 3 or 4 work periods instead of just 2. Maybe it is really not going to happen, but this is my point - solve the problem at source, not create something to workaround the problem.

Obviously not the issue here, but this reminds me of past discussions (some of which have also been mentioned on the forum by myself or others) where a manager wants to implement many technical “fraud prevention” measures to stop their staff stealing money from the business. While some solutions like logging voids will work effectively in some cases, if it is something that keeps happening, there is only so much you can do to stop it - if someone is intent on stealing, they will find a way - and therefore the best solution is solving the actual problem - get rid of the staff member, or install CCTV clearly visible to the staff that they are being recorded and inform them they were caught.

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Are they/you using an type of timeclock? I have our setup when the first person logs-in it will start a workperiod. When that last person logs-out, it will end the workperiod.

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