Specifying Same-Store Sales Preferences

Same-Store Sales Preferences enable you to define the Method of Comparison and Store Settings. The Preferences are available from Setup > Same-Store Sales > Preferences.

Method of Comparison and Comparable Stores

The Method of Comparison is the approach for comparing store sales of comparable stores, based on whether a store has been open in the years being compared.

You can select from two Methods of Comparison:

Entire Year Comparison

This method considers a store to be comparable if it is open for the entire This Year (TY) and Last Year (LY) of the reporting periods.

Stores whose eligibility date is on or before the start of the calendar year selected as Start Date -Last Year, are comparable. Stores whose eligibility date is after that date are noncomparable.

Note:
Store Eligibility Date =Same-Store Open Date +Days Excluded After Store Opening Date

For example, you want to compare store sales in 2019 and 2020. Year 2019 is from 3 Feb 2019 to 1 Feb 2020. Year 2020 is from 2 Feb 2020 to 30 Jan 2021. Store A opened on 15 Jan 2019, and Store B opened on 15 Feb 2019. If you want to compare store sales in March 2019 with that in March 2020, provided that Days Excluded After Store Opening Date is 0, Store A will be comparable, and Store B will be non-comparable stores. Store A is be comparable as it has been open for the entire year 2019 and 2020. Store B is non-comparable as it has only been open after the start of year 2019.
Partial Year Comparison

This method considers a store to be comparable if it is open in both reporting periods, This Year (TY) and Last Year (LY).

Stores whose eligibility date is after the reporting period: End Date -Last Year, are noncomparable.

Stores whose eligibility date is before the reporting period Start Date -Last Year, are comparable.

Stores whose eligibility date is in between the reporting period Start Date and End Date Last Year, will be noncomparable before the store eligibility date, and the same store will be comparable from the eligibility date onwards.

Based on the scenario in the previous example, Store A and Store B both will be comparable as both stores were open within the period being compared, March 2019 and March 2020.

To specify Same-Store Sales Preferences:

Go to Setup > Same-Store Sales > Preferences.
Under Method of Comparison, choose either:
- Entire Year Comparison
- Partial Year Comparison
Under Store Settings, specify values in the following fields:
- Days Excluded After Store Opening Date
  
  Enter the number of days after the opening date of a store, during which the store will be excluded from being comparable and will be considered as non-comparable.
  
  For example, a store opened on March 25, and you want to make it comparable in the report only after March 30. From the March 25 to March 30 is 5 days, which you can specify in the Days Excluded After Store Opening Date field. During this period, March 25-30, the store will be noncomparable. It will be comparable after March 30.
- Store Opening Date Field ID
  
  This is an optional field where you can enter a value only if you did not use the Same-Store Sales Open Date field on the Location record, to specify the store opening date. If you used a different Date field, such as the Open Date field or a similar date field to specify the store opening date, you can get its field ID from its Field Level Help text and then specify it here in the Store Opening Date Field ID. The default is the field ID of Same-Store Sales Open Date on the Location record.
  
  Note:
  The Store Opening Date Field ID must be a valid date field type.
Click Save.

Considerations in Generating the Same-Store Sales Report

In generating the Same-Store sales Report, you should consider the following:

The invoice record generated from Sales Order flow should have a selected Location; otherwise, the Same-Store Sales Report will not show the data for the Sales Order > Invoice.

By default, the Location field is not mandatory on invoices generated from sales orders, but the Same-Store Sales Report needs the invoice record to have a selected Location to include that transaction in the report.
The Same-Store Sales Report is completely dependent on the Body Location field of the transaction, the report shows the data based on the selected location for a transaction.
For the report to process accurate and complete data, users must complete any process flow for sales transactions (invoices with Location and correct dates) as well as for returns (Return Authorization, Refund, Credit Memo).

For example, if a sales order is only processed until item fulfillment at the time the report is generated, the Gross Margin column will only show negative values (GL Impact of the items in item fulfillment) because there is no generated invoice yet.

General Notices