What is the difference between the Weekly Sales Ordering and the Q90 reports?

What is…

What is the difference between the Weekly Sales Ordering Report and Q90 Sales Inventory Report? Which one should I use?

The Weekly Sales Ordering Report and the Q90 Sales Inventory Report both summarize the last 12 weeks of sales with current inventory on hand and detailed product information.

Both reports are used to:

• Reference recent sales by week and current inventory levels to reorder faster
• Get a snapshot of your sales and inventory along with key product attributes

What is the difference between the Weekly Sales Ordering Report and Q90 Sales Inventory Report?

The reports differ in the date segmentation. 

• The Q90 Sales Inventory Report uses fixed calendar weeks 
• The Weekly Sales Ordering Report uses weeks based on 7-day periods going backwards from today's date

The date segmentation in the Q90 Sales Inventory Repot is centered around the desire to map sales to a retail calendar. A retail calendar is used by some larger retailers to normalize the regular calendar to keep the same number of weekends in every month. Weekends play a big role in sales, using a retail calendar can make the retail budgeting process easier and the sales reporting comparable.

Some organizations don't have the need to use specific calendar weeks for ordering purposes. They are more concerned with total sales, broken week by week, and aren't forecasting or reporting in terms of the definition of a week.

Which report should I use?

It comes down to personal preference. If you prefer date segmentation based around a retail calendar, we recommend using the Q90. If you're more concerned with total sales, broken week by week, we recommend the Weekly Sales Ordering Report.

Ultimately, inventory levels usually have a sufficient buffer to the point where a calendar week vs. seven day rolling week won't materially affect what your store orders.

We've created the following table to help you decide what report is right for you.

Q90 Sales Inventory Report	Weekly Sales Ordering Report
Has more periods (12 vs. 6)	Has fewer periods (6 vs. 12)
Has the concept of Week 0, which is the current week	Has no concept of Week 0, the report will always reflect yesterday and the prior 7 days (inclusive) as Week 1
Shows sales up to the minute	Shows sales up to yesterday. Sales actively happening on the current day are not represented in the report.

More Information

For detailed information about each report, check out the Learn More link under each report in the GT Backend. See the article Reporting specifications and guidance.