Overview
Vendra has two types of business intelligence tools: live dashboards that refresh in real time as transactions occur, and on-demand reports that are generated for a specific date range when you need them. Dashboards are ideal for monitoring daily performance at a glance — your total sales today, current cash balance, or how many orders are pending. On-demand reports are used for detailed analysis, period-end reviews, and compliance filing.
Every list view and reporting view in Vendra supports filtering, grouping, and the ability to pivot the data into a spreadsheet-style table or a graph. Any view configured the way you want it can be pinned to your personal dashboard as a live widget. The mis_builder module goes further — it lets you create custom KPI reports that combine data from multiple modules into a single formatted statement, similar to a management dashboard template.
Sales Reports
Go to Sales → Reporting → Sales for the core sales analysis report. By default, it shows a bar chart of confirmed sales orders by month. The real power is in the filters and groupings:
- Group By Product — See which products generate the most revenue. Identify your top 10 sellers and your slow movers.
- Group By Customer — Rank customers by total spend. Identify your highest-value accounts and spot customers whose spending has declined.
- Group By Salesperson — Compare performance across your sales team — number of orders, revenue, and average order value per rep.
- Group By Period — View sales by week, month, quarter, or year. Use the comparison toggle to overlay the same period from the prior year.
Switch to the Pivot view for a matrix breakdown — for example, product categories on the rows and months on the columns, showing revenue for each intersection. Save any useful combination as a Favorite so you can re-run it instantly next month.
POS Reports
Go to Point of Sale → Reporting → Orders Report for POS-specific reporting. The daily Z-report equivalent is the Session Report — access it from Point of Sale → Reporting → Session Report or directly from within a closed session. It shows:
- Opening and closing cash balance for the session
- Total sales by payment method (Cash, M-Pesa, Bank Transfer)
- Number of orders processed and average order value
- Expected versus actual cash reconciliation and any discrepancy
- Discounts given and voided orders during the session
The Sales Details report breaks down POS sales by product, showing quantity sold, unit price, and total revenue per product within a date range. Filter by POS terminal to compare performance across multiple shop locations. The POS Profit & Loss report adds cost of goods sold to calculate gross margin per product or category.
Inventory Reports
The inventory reporting suite is accessed from Inventory → Reporting. The most important reports for daily operations are:
- Stock Valuation — The monetary value of all current inventory. This feeds into the balance sheet and is the definitive figure for insurance, audit, and financial reporting purposes.
- Product Moves (Moves History) — Every stock movement in the system in chronological order. Filter by product, location, date range, or operation type to investigate discrepancies or trace a specific item.
- Forecasted Stock — Projects future stock levels based on pending receipts and confirmed outgoing orders. Essential for avoiding stockouts on high-demand products.
- Inventory Aging — Shows how long stock has been sitting in your warehouse, helping identify slow-moving or potentially obsolete items that need to be promoted or written off.
Purchase Reports
Go to Purchase → Reporting → Purchase Report for procurement analysis. Filter by vendor to see your total spend with each supplier, compare this to budget, and identify vendors where you have significant concentration. Group by product category to see where your purchasing budget is allocated. The Aged Partner Balance in Accounting → Reporting → Aged Partner Balance (filtered to payables) shows overdue vendor bills grouped by ageing period — critical for managing cash outflows and maintaining supplier relationships.
Financial Reports
Financial statements are accessed from Accounting → Reporting. The extended Account Financial Reports module provides:
Profit & Loss
Revenue minus expenses for a chosen period. Set the date range, choose comparison periods, and use the unfold arrows to drill down from summary to individual account level.
Balance Sheet
Assets, liabilities, and equity at a point in time. Verify that the inventory asset account matches the Inventory Valuation report and that your cash accounts match bank statements.
General Ledger
Every debit and credit line for every account in a period. The most detailed financial report — used by auditors and for investigating specific account movements.
Trial Balance
All account closing balances in a single view. Total debits must equal total credits. An imbalanced trial balance indicates a data entry or configuration error.
Payroll Reports
Go to Payroll → Reporting for payroll analytics. The Payslip Details report lists every payslip line (basic pay, allowances, PAYE, NHIF, NSSF, net pay) for a selected period and group of employees. The Salary Analysis pivot report lets you compare payroll cost by department, job position, or month — useful for identifying cost trends and departmental budget variance.
The mis_builder
The mis_builder (Management Information System Builder) module is a powerful tool for creating custom financial and operational KPI reports that combine data from multiple modules. It is installed as part of the Vendra Pro Plus subscription.
To use mis_builder, go to Accounting → Reporting → MIS Reports. You can create a new report template by defining rows (each row is a KPI or calculated metric) and columns (each column is a time period or comparison). Each row references an accounting account, a formula combining accounts, or a KPI expression.
For example, a management summary template might include rows for: Total Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Margin %, Total Operating Expenses, EBITDA, Net Profit, and Cash at Bank — all in a single formatted view covering the current month, prior month, and year-to-date. Once built, the template can be saved, shared with other users, and scheduled for automatic email delivery.
mis_builder report templates are reusable. Once you build a management report layout, it generates fresh data every time you open it — just change the date range. You do not need to rebuild it each period.
Scheduled Reports
Vendra can send reports to defined email recipients on a recurring schedule — useful for sending daily sales summaries to managers, weekly stock valuation reports to the finance team, or monthly P&L statements to directors.
To schedule a report, open any mis_builder report or standard report and look for the Schedule option in the action menu. Set the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), the send time, and the recipient email addresses. The report is generated automatically at the configured time and delivered as a PDF or Excel attachment.
Exporting Data
Every list view in Vendra can be exported to CSV or Excel. Apply any filters and group-by settings first to narrow down exactly the data you need, then click the Export button (the download icon in the top-right of the list). Choose the fields to include in the export and the file format (CSV for raw data, XLSX for formatted spreadsheets). The file downloads to your computer immediately.
For pivot table exports, switch to the Pivot view, configure your rows, columns, and measures, then use the Download button that appears in the pivot toolbar. This exports the pivot table in its current configuration, including all subtotals and groupings, directly to an Excel file.