Introduction
This article gives an introduction to the weekly balance and how it works today.
What is the weekly balance?
Historically, the weekly balance has been used as a sales logging and reporting tool for a department. This is where store employees would enter each day's sales numbers manually so it was saved in the system. This helped more senior employees to track a department's sales development across time and departments and compare it against other metrics in Samesystem.
Today, as more departments are saving data in the weekly balance automatically via integrations, the weekly balance is becoming more of a data table/database to review and troubleshoot sales data. And as a consequence less of a tool that is used to manually enter sales data and the end of each day. As such the weekly balance, is the only place in SameSystem where sales data is being stored and features like forecasting and reports depend on a correct and continuous flow of sales data being available in the weekly balance.
Expect to meet customers both with a manual setup and customers that have automatized the sales data import using integrations (meaning they are saving sales data on an hourly level and not only on a daily level).
Fields in the Weekly Balance
The Weekly balance fields should only include sales data that is useful for customers planning needs. These are the fields we recommend having in the weekly balance:
Gross sales
Discounts
Returns
Gross Profit
Number of items sold
Number of items returned
Number of customers
Number of visitors
Net sales
NB: Even though older customers might have a complex weekly balance setup with multiple fields and complex calculations then it is important to remember that today we only recommend that customers have fields that support their planning efforts and thus recommend a transition towards a more simple setup.
Structure of the weekly balance
The weekly balance consists of a number of different menu points:
Weekly Balance
The weekly balance is where all sales information goes once manually entered in the weekly balance or imported via an integration. Even though the weekly balance configurations - done in the weekly balance setup menu - is for the whole client each department has its own weekly balance. You switch between them in the department selector.
The weekly balance shows a week of sales data that can be seen per day and the week's numbers are summed in the total column.
Each field type (Ie. Gross sales) can also be unfolded to show the different hourly data metrics by clicking the small arrow.
If a store (or departments as they are called in SameSystem) needs the sales metrics to be split into different registers this is possible by clicking the "+" button above the weekly balance.
You can toggle through the different registers using the arrows "<" and ">" that will show once you have more than one register. Click "total" to see the sales number for the whole department.
The bottom of the weekly balance will show you if the data is confirmed, who did it and when it was done.
Remember that before the day is confirmed in the weekly balance the numbers will not show any other place in the system.
NB: Before the weekly balance can be used it needs to be configured in the weekly balance setup menu and the correct weekly balance settings and permissions need to be enabled.
Weekly Balance Setup Menu
The weekly balance setup menu is where the weekly balance is configured for the whole client. This means which fields will each department have in their weekly balance and are there any special fields based on special calculations.
The weekly balance setup menu consists of three sections (1) the list of weekly balance fields, (2) configurations for each field, and (3) general configurations for the whole weekly balance:
“Creating field”
Creating Weekly balance field can be done by entering “Name” in field and clicking first “Save” button 
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“Deleting field”Weekly balance field can be deleted by clicking “Delete” button Note: In the database, field and its values will not be deleted, they will receive “disabled” status (has to be double checked) 
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“Changing order”When a user creates weekly balance fields, it is possible to change their order.
 
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“Type”Weekly balance field “Type”. In the dropdown user has the ability to choose between 4 types:
Note: if field has data with different type, system will not allow to change field’s type to “Text”
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“Include in” Selections can only be made from fields which have ”calculated/special” enabled (formula doesn’t have to be filled) Main functionality is used with field “type” to add/subtract values of other fields (similar of having “calculated/special” formula) |
“Calculated/Special” Allows to use formula to calculate weekly balance field’s value. |
“Are summable”
If enabled, weekly balance field’s values are added up and shown in the “Total” field 
(Note: Also it is important to enable this setting to receive predictions from prediction API) (Note: if field has “calculated/special” formula, “are summable” setting will override “Total” field and add numbers up, instead of calculating special formula)
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“Code”
Used to export weekly balance data from the SameSystem. When this field has “code” it will be exported as a line. Pathway: Tools > Export > Weekly balance 
(Note: This could be used for special financial systems to provide VAT code. For example, client uses financial system, where they have different VAT codes, for different taxes and they use different accounts - Code/Text 1, can be used to provide that information)
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“Text 1”
Same as “code”, is used when weekly balance data are being exported. Pathway: Tools > Export > Weekly balance
 (Note: This could be used for special financial systems to provide VAT code. For example, client uses financial system, where they have different VAT codes, for different taxes and they use different accounts - Code/Text 1, can be used to provide that information)
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“Only for Administrators” When enabled, this weekly balance field will be visible only for users with “Administrator” title, other roles will not be able to see the field. (Note: This setting can be used to make data as historical data by hiding field for non administrator users) |
“Must be entered” If this setting is enabled, user will have to write value in selected field before it is possible to confirm/approve the day in the Weekly Balance. 
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“Create index in overview”If this setting is enabled, field can be used in the “Overviews” Pathway: Tools > Overviews > Settings  |
“Define field type” Allows to select one of the predefined field types in the SameSystem:
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“Split into intervals (1hr)”
(Note: when this setting is enabled, it can not be used with “Calculated/Special” setting |
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Special fields and options
“Difference in petty cash” Selected field acts as petty cash difference field, used in combination with “Limit for petty cash +/-” can be used to trigger emails to management, when a certain limit is reached. |
“Expenses”
The selected field acts as expenses. “Expense accounts” creation can be done: Administration > Weekly balance > Expense accounts When the field is selected as “Expenses” and expense accounts are set up by the administration, then in the weekly balance after selecting the field, the user is able to fill in details: value, expense account, attach file.   |
“Deposits” The selected field acts as deposits. “Deposit accounts” creation can be done: Administration > Weekly balance > Deposit accounts When the field is selected as ”Deposits” and deposit accounts are setup by administration, then in the weekly balance after selecting field, user is able to fill details: value, expense account, attach file.  
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“Cash holdings - Morning/Evening” Both settings have to be selected simultaneously:  After setup, both fields can not be manually edited in the Weekly balance (Grayed out): Therefore, the “Evening” field usually has “Calculated/Special” formula and depends on other fields.
Note: If next day is “day off” or “public holiday”, “Evening” field’s value (and dependent fields values: written in “calculated/special”) are copied to next day. When that day is confirmed, process is repeated until work day is met, and “Morning” field receives value. |
“Safe bag” According to description, selected field should act as “money saving bag” and have similar functionality as “cash morning” / “cash evening”
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“Use as turnover in Budget pages” Selected field will be used in the Budgeting and Schedule pages: Department > Budget > Budget https://in.samesystem.com/cxxxdyyy/budget/monthly/  (Note: If day is not confirmed in the weekly balance and field has value, in the system it is treated as budget, when day is confirmed it becomes turnover) |
“Limit for petty cash +/-” Selected value will be used as limit for petty cash field.  Also there are ability to setup email trigger when petty cash difference is exceeded by selected limit.
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Weekly Balance General Settings
The weekly balance general settings tab is where the weekly balance general settings are done for the whole client.
Per default the following settings should always be checked:
"Multiple cash registers" allow departments to have more than one register in their weekly balance. It is also a requirement if you enable POS integrations.
"Remove comment field in weekly balance" should be checked unless otherwise instructed for a specific new or existing client.
"Auto confirm weekly balance" is a setting also located in the weekly balance general settings that allow clients to auto-confirm the weekly balance each day at a specific time instead of doing it manually. As numbers will not be displayed elsewhere in the system before the day is confirmed this setting is preferred among many clients. The "Auto confirm weekly balance" is mandatory if the client is using a sales integration.
NB: Remaining settings should not be used unless it is to troubleshoot existing client problems, as many will be discontinued soon.
There are also department settings for the weekly balance but as they are rarely used they are not covered in this article.
Weekly Balance Permissions
The weekly balance permissions controllers which user types that have access to what functionalities in the weekly balance. The country template defaults are recommended unless otherwise instructed specifically by the client.