Are Shopify Sales Reports Accurate?

[SmushT]

We have been pulling and exporting "Sales over Time" reports and reporting sales $ based off the initial pull. 

Recently, I've noticed that the sales reports factors in Unfulfilled/Cancelled orders and applies it towards the total. 

Do we need to filter these out to get accurate data? Or does Shopify do something special that will make sure the numbers are accurate in the end?  

[Tira]

Hi, @SmushT. 

Tira here to help.

I appreciate you providing these details. The sales over time report shows the number of orders and the total sales that you’ve made over time. The total sales number that you see on the report should be calculated like this: gross sales - discounts - returns + taxes + shipping charges.

Total sales will be a positive number for a sale on the date that an order was placed, and a negative number for a return on the date that an order was returned. You can find this information at the bottom of our help doc for common sales terms.

When you cancel an order, it will appear as a sale for the day that it was placed, and then as a return for the day that it was canceled, so your sales numbers are zero for that order. Learn more in our help docs about sales & returns.

Are you looking at these reports before an order was unfulfilled/cancelled or are you looking at these reports after? If reports are pulled before a return is made, then the reports will be inaccurate, so it may be best to pull these reports at the time that you need. 

[KBetterReports]

Hi @SmushT,

Kritesh here from Better Reports support team.

I believe our app Better Reports may be able to help in the case where you want to exclude unfulfilled orders from the sales data. We can create a report that shows the sales reports filtering out orders that are unfulfilled or cancelled.

Also, if you need it, we can also create a report that shows the refunds on the date the order was placed (rather than the dates the refund happened). These reports can also be exported directly to Excel, csv or pdf.

I encourage you to install Better Reports and start your free 14-day trial, and I'll be happy to set this up for you. 

In addition to building custom reports to meet your specific needs, you'll also get access to 60+ built-in reports that cover many common use cases for merchants and our reports can be scheduled to send to your email or Google Drive at set frequencies.

Let me know how you go and feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.