How Do I Adjust the Date Range on a Report?

Another entry in our 'Basics' series, this article will look at how to change the dates/times on a report and how to adjust the breakdown of the displayed data (summary vs. daily, weekly, monthly etc). 

This can be very useful if you're hoping to limit a report to a particular period, keeping the data in an easy to read and analyze format. 

We'll begin with a Sales by (Billing) Location report like so: 

Understanding Date Ranges (Last X...)

By default, most reports in Report Toaster are set to the 'Last 30 Days', meaning that they run from 30 days ago to Today.

This updates every day, so if I looked at this report on January 31st 2022, it would go back as far as January 2nd. However, if I checked this report on the same day next week (February 7th) then the report would of course run from then till 30 days prior (January 9th). 

This is quite important to understand when you consider some of the specific default date options.

For example. 'Today' means literally just this day. So if you're looking at the report first thing in the morning, it will likely have less data in it than if you look at the same report by evening. Likewise, 'Week to Date' will have very different data depending on if you are checking on a Tuesday morning vs. a Friday afternoon.  

So be aware that when you're creating a report on a Wednesday, 'Last 7 Days' (Wed - Last Wed), Week to Date (this Mon to this Wed) and Last Week (Mon - Sun Last Week) all mean very different things. 

Now that we've covered that, let's look at how to change the date range on a report. 

Changing the Date and Time

At the top right of the screen where it says 'Last 30 Days' you can click that to change the date range. 

Notice that in yellow, on the right hand side, you can see those default options we discussed. You can click any one of these and the report will update automatically. 

E.g. If I selected 'Today', the report would now look like this: 

Alternatively, you can set a custom date range by doing the following: 

Step 1 - Click on that same menu to access the date picker.

Step 2 - Under the first set of dates (red), I can pick the date I want the report to start running from. 

For example, if I wanted to run the report from December 7th, I could click the arrows next to 'January' to cycle back to December 7th, and select the date like so: 

You'll notice the date range also changes in the Start bar at the top. This is actually a typeable field, so if you prefer to simply type in the range you want to use, you can do that too. 

(For more tips on what text you can enter in this field, check out the question mark hint next to the box like so:) 

Step 3 - Next, under End (the green box in that original screenshot), we can type in the date we want the report to end on. If you want the report to run till today (e.g. December 7th till Now) you can also leave it blank.

But let's say, for example, that my sale ran from December 7th to the 21st. In this case, I would then input that in the End field like so: 

Hit 'Ok' when you're done, and you should be good to go. 

Step 4 (Optional) - Now in case you want to get REALLY specific, you can also introduce times. This might be important to measure the impact of a key sale, so in this case, I could type in 24hr times in both boxes to have the report run from first thing on the 7th to just before midnight on the 21st:

You can then see that the final report looks like this:

Changing the Date Range Breakdown 

Now suppose I want to change my report between seeing the totals for the period vs. a breakdown (by daily, weekly, monthly etc.)

This is actually quite easy, but perhaps best illustrated with the '30 Day Summary report' like so: 

As you can see here, this displays the totals for the 'Last 30 Days', where I had 7,429 orders with a Total Sales of $1,549,743.89. But suppose I wanted to see a breakdown of how much I sold each week? 

Step 1 - Next to the date picker (top right), click the breakdown options next to it to choose a range.

Step 2 - In this case, we'll select weekly. Now the report should look like this: 

As you can see here, this is very useful if you're looking to break up larger data sets and measure trends over a specified interval of time, rather than trying to simply look at the totals for the period.

Through this chart, I can see my Sales are down for the week! Now perhaps this is not surprising considering I created this on a Monday, but it might have been a more concerning drop-off if I was looking at historical data covering a different period (e.g. Last Year). 

And that's it :)

For a more detailed explanation on using this feature, check out our video here.

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