Lifetimely: Sales Breakdown Report
At a glance: The sales breakdown report strictly aligns with standard Shopify definitions used to calculate total and net sales. This offers a reliable way to reconcile Lifetimely data with what you see in Shopify.
Report overview
The Sales Breakdown Report provides a granular view of how your store's individual financial line items, including gross sales, discounts, returns, shipping charges, and taxes, interact and contribute to your comprehensive sales totals. By breaking down your financial stream item by item, this report enables deep visibility into true profitability and deductions over custom time horizons.
Key Metrics & Definitions
The interface maps your transactional data into distinct metrics to maintain a transparent audit trail:
| Metric Name | Description & Calculation Logic |
| Gross sales | The total product price multiplied by product quantities before any deductions. It represents the raw revenue generated from customer purchases. |
| Discounts | The total value of coupons, promotional codes, and automatic discounts deducted from the gross sale prices. |
| Returns | The value of goods returned by customers. Deducted directly from gross sales to resolve net balances. |
| Net sales | Calculated as: Gross sales − Discounts − Returns . This highlights true item-level product demand. |
| Shipping charges | The total fees collected from customers specifically for delivery and shipping logistics. |
| Taxes | The total amount of sales tax, VAT, or local duties collected on orders based on store tax settings. |
| Total sales | The aggregate absolute revenue calculated as: Net sales + Shipping charges + Taxes . This is the complete amount received. |
Time Periods and Comparison Settings
The report offers powerful comparison mechanics to evaluate performance shifts over time:
- Time Period Selection: Select any custom range to view performance across specified fiscal bounds.
- Compare To: Dropdown parameters allow comparison against a previous period (shifting identical days back dynamically) or a custom historical range.
- Delta Reporting (% Change): Provides percentage variations between your selected period and comparison period side-by-side to track positive growth or contraction trends across individual line items.
Common Use Cases
Understanding data discrepancies: The income statement in Lifetimely shows slightly different values for net sales compared to Shopify, this is intentional due to having additional data available to calculate a net sales total. The sales breakdown report allows you to reconcile Lifetimely data with Shopify to ensure that data is correct.
Evaluating Promotional Impact: Monitor the ratio between Gross sales and Discounts. If discounts are increasing faster than gross volume, your margin might be eroding unnecessarily.
Monitoring Return Overhead: Keep a close eye on the Returns metric. Spikes in returns indicate potential issues with product description accuracy, quality fulfillment, or customer expectations.