Reports and Exports
What the Posbel Admin panel can produce for a period: the figures on screen, the PDF reports you hand to an accountant, and the CSV exports behind them.
Note
Everything here works in both versions. What differs is which document is authoritative, and how a searched period is selected — see How a Period Is Selected and What the Certified Version Changes.
Which Page Answers Which Question
| Question | Page |
|---|---|
| What did we take, and what VAT do we owe? | Shift Z — see Shifts |
| What sold, and when? | Dashboard and Order History |
| Who worked, and for how long? | Shifts per user, inside a shift's statistics |
| Where did a missing amount go? | The account's own Payment Transactions — see Payment Totals |
Everything on this page starts from Shift Z, because that is the only view that follows the money rather than the service. Accounts and Order History are searched by when service happened, which is the wrong question for a VAT return — see Accounting.
A Quarter, Step by Step
This is the whole routine for a VAT quarter. It is the same for a month or a year; only the dates change.
1. Set the range
On Shift Z, set the Start date and End date to the quarter, for example 1 January to 31 March.
The totals on the page immediately cover the whole range you searched. Nothing has to be added up by hand, and no shift has to be opened.
2. Check nothing is still open
Any shift still showing In progress... has no closing figures. Chase it before you report: its takings are not settled, and it will move your totals when it closes.
3. Read the two panels
- Total — cash, card, transfer, offered, credit and error for the period, and the overall total. These are paid and closed transactions.
- VAT — every rate that occurred in the period, each with its HVAT (excluding VAT), VAT, and Total.
Note
The two panels do not measure the same thing. The VAT panel includes all orders, paid or not; the Total panel counts only what was paid. A gap between them is expected in a period that contains open accounts, and is not an error.
4. Download the reports
Open the Download button at the top of the shift list. It offers three things:
| Choice | You get |
|---|---|
| Download Z | A PDF summary of the period — the accountant's document |
| Download X | A PDF breakdown of what was sold, shift by shift |
| CSV | The shift list itself as a spreadsheet |
Both PDFs cover the booking dates your range selects, which is not quite the same as the dates themselves — see How a Period Is Selected. To produce the same reports for one trading session instead, open that shift and use the same Download button there.
5. Add the detail your bookkeeper asks for
The per-table CSV exports live one level deeper, on a shift's statistics view. See The CSV Exports below.
How a Period Is Selected
A date range does not simply cut the calendar. It selects booking dates, and it takes each one whole.
A booking date is chosen when its first shift starts inside your range. Once chosen, every shift of that booking date is included, even one that started after your end date. A booking date whose first shift started before your start date is left out entirely, even if it was still running when your range began.
The consequence is the one that matters for reporting: a booking date is never split across two periods. Search January to March and then April to June, and no session is counted twice, and none falls between them.
Why a Booking Date Can Hold Several Shifts
| Version | What a booking date contains |
|---|---|
| Belgian SCE-certified | One or more shifts. Staff choose at closing time whether the day ends |
| International | Exactly one shift. Every close ends the booking date |
On the register in the certified version, closing a shift asks End of day ?. End the day (Z) closes the booking date and produces the day's Z report; End current shift closes only that session, and the next shift opened joins the same booking date. That is how a venue running a lunch service and an evening service keeps them on one fiscal day.
In the International version the question is not asked and every shift stands alone, so the rule above is invisible: a range selects exactly the shifts that started in it.
Tip
This is what makes a quarter safe to report. A booking date that opened on 31 March and closed on 1 April belongs entirely to the first quarter, because that is where its first shift started, and it will not reappear in the second.
Note
Downloading Download Z from one shift gives the whole booking date that shift belongs to, not just that session. On a certified day made of several shifts, opening any of them produces the same document.
The PDF Reports
Both reports are generated when you ask for them, carry your establishment's name and the period at the top, and download straight to your computer.
Tip
This is where a cumulated Z for a week, a month or a quarter comes from. Set the range on Shift Z, then Download → Download Z: the PDF covers everything in that range. Asked from an individual shift instead, the same action gives that one booking date.
The register cannot do this. In the Posbel app, Print shift history prints the Z of one shift at a time, because that is a paper ticket for a single session — see Establishment Shift. Reach for the app when you need a ticket in your hand; reach for the panel when you need the figures for a period.
Warning
Neither PDF is a certified fiscal document. They are management reporting: figures to read, to reconcile and to pass to a bookkeeper. Under Belgian SCE certification the authoritative document is the Z report printed by the register, which is signed by the fiscal module and carries its control data on the ticket. That is the document an inspector accepts — see Establishment Shift.
Download Z — the period summary
The document to send to an accountant. It contains, for the range you searched:
- Shifts — one row per trading session, with its start and end and its totals per payment type
- Total Shifts — those rows added up, the takings for the whole period
- Forced Payments — payments registered without the terminal or cash machine confirming them, listed per member of staff, when any occurred
- VAT Total — per VAT rate, with Rate, Base, VAT and TTC
- VAT by parent group — the same tax split across your top-level product groups
Tip
Point 5 is the one bookkeepers ask for and few people find. It gives VAT at the level you actually report on — food against drink, for instance — instead of product by product.
Warning
A forced payment is one a member of staff registered by skipping an unresponsive payment terminal or cash machine, using Force payment registration on the register. The money is recorded, but no terminal confirmed it. A period with forced payments is worth reconciling against your terminal's own statement before you file anything.
Download X — what was sold
The operational counterpart, and the document to keep for yourself. Per shift it gives the shift's summary and VAT, then breaks the trading down by products, by groups, by parent groups, VAT by parent group, and by users, with forced payments where they occurred.
Every product, group and parent-group line is split into four columns rather than netted into one figure:
| Column | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Sales | Items sold |
| Refund | Items refunded to the customer |
| Correction | Items cancelled, reversed or re-priced after being registered |
| Other neg. | Remaining negative movements |
Each cell carries the amount and, in brackets, the units behind it.
When the range covers more than one shift, an All Summary section is added at the end, merging every shift into one set of tables. That is the section to read for a quarter; the per-shift sections above it are for investigating one session.
Warning
Neither PDF is an invoice or a VAT ticket, and the document says so on its last page. The report is built at the moment you ask for it and is not kept on Posbel's side, so storing it alongside your original VAT tickets and invoices is your responsibility. It never replaces the register's signed ticket or its Z report.
Note
Some section headings in the PDF appear in English even when the panel is in French or Dutch. The figures and the layout are unaffected.
The CSV Exports
CSV is for anything you want to sort, filter or hand to a bookkeeper's software.
From the shift list, the Download menu exports the list itself: one row per shift with its totals.
From a shift's statistics view, each table has its own download button beside its title:
| Export | Contains |
|---|---|
user_details |
Takings per member of staff, per payment type |
user_shift |
Shifts worked and total hours per person — the payroll figure |
group_details |
Revenue per product group |
parent_group_details |
The same rolled up, with VAT detail |
product_details |
Revenue per product, with purchase price where one is set |
Set a date range first and the statistics view — and every export on it — covers the whole period rather than one session. See Statistics for a Whole Period.
Hours Worked
Staff hours are in the Shifts per user table on the statistics view, not on a page of their own.
Opened on a date range it gives one row per employee with the number of shifts worked and the total duration, which is the figure payroll needs. Opened on one shift it lists each individual clock-in.
Analysing Sales
Reporting answers what you owe. These answer what is working.
| Where | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Daily sales, average basket, top sellers, rush hours, and sales per product group over the interval you choose |
| Order History | Every product ordered, searched by when it was ordered — trends and pricing checks |
| Products table on a shift's statistics | Revenue per item for one session or a whole period, with purchase price where set |
| The four-column split in the X report | Whether a weak figure is weak sales or a large correction |
Tip
A group total that looks poor reads very differently once corrections are separated from sales. Netted into one figure the two are indistinguishable, which is the single most common misreading of a period.
What the Certified Version Changes
Both PDF reports and every CSV export are available in the certified panel as well. Two things differ.
A period is selected by booking date. A certified day can hold several shifts, so the rule above has visible effects: a report can include a shift that started after your end date, and the totals of one booking date are never divided between two reports.
These documents are not the fiscal ones. What the panel produces is operational reporting in both versions.
Warning
For an audit or an official declaration under Belgian SCE certification, use the signed VAT ticket and the Z report printed by the register, which carries the fiscal module's control data — see Establishment Shift. The panel's PDF is not a certified fiscal document and says so on its last page, which is not a formality.