Why did the number change?

Sales are up eleven thousand. That's the easy part. The hard part — the part that decides what you do on Monday — is which of those things actually moved, and whether it was one person having an exceptional month or the whole floor lifting together.

Two tools in Assist answer that, and they're the two worth learning first.

Why did sales change?

Pick By staff or By service, press Explain.

You get a headline stating the movement and both figures, a grey line naming exactly what's being counted, a paragraph of plain English, and then Top movers — each name with its before, its after, and the difference.

The movers reconcile to the total. Everything too small to list individually is collected into an Others row rather than quietly dropped, so the parts add up to the whole. That's what makes it usable in a conversation: nobody can ask "what about the rest" and find there isn't an answer.

Compare periods

Same idea, but you choose the terms:

• Sales, Tips or Refunds — which measure.
• vs prior period or vs last year — which yardstick.
• By staff or By service — how to break it down.

Then Compare. The headline spells out both date windows in full, so a comparison can never be ambiguous about what it compared.

vs last year is the one that earns its keep in a seasonal business. Every salon has a quiet February; comparing it with January tells you nothing you didn't know, and comparing it with last February tells you whether you're growing.

Read the grey line

Under every headline is a short line naming the measure — service lines only, excludes products, tips and tax, or line revenue, excludes tips and tax.

It's easy to skim past and it's the most important sentence in the panel. The figures here will not match the Total Sales tile on the front page, because they are deliberately measuring something narrower. Neither is wrong; they're answers to different questions, and the grey line is the product telling you which question you asked.

If you're ever reconciling one of these against a report, that line tells you which report to open.