Actual Revenue Tracking
Budget percentages on the rota are based on forecast revenue - your estimate of how much the venue will take that week. Once a day or week has passed, you can record the actual takings (ex VAT) so that wage percentages reflect reality rather than estimates.
This gives you a true picture of labour cost efficiency: not "we planned to spend 32% of what we hoped to earn", but "we actually spent 34% of what we actually earned".
Why It Matters
A forecast-only system has a blind spot. If your forecast was optimistic, your actual labour percentage is worse than the rota suggests. If the week was stronger than expected, your real percentage is better.
Example:
| Forecast | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly revenue | £8,000 | £6,500 |
| Labour cost | £2,400 | £2,400 |
| Wage % | 30% | 36.9% |
The rota showed 30% - on target. But the venue only took £6,500, so the real wage percentage was 36.9%. Without actual revenue tracking, this gap goes unnoticed until the P&L arrives weeks later.
Entering Actual Revenue
There are two ways to record actual takings.
From the Rota Builder
Open any past or current week's rota. In the Budget Tracker bar at the top, you will see an Enter Actuals button (or Edit Actuals if you have already entered values for that week).
Click it to open the Actual Revenue modal.
From the Dashboard
The StaffBrik Dashboard shows a Revenue Actuals Needed card when past weeks have missing actuals. This is designed for operators who manage multiple locations - you can quickly see which sites and weeks still need actual revenue entered, and fill them in without navigating to each rota individually.
Each row shows the location name, week, number of missing days, and an Enter button that opens the entry modal directly.
The dashboard widget checks the last four weeks by default. Make it a habit to enter actuals at the start of each week for the previous week. This keeps your labour cost data current and your budget forecasts more accurate over time.
Daily vs Weekly Entry
The Actual Revenue modal offers two entry modes, matching how forecasts are set:
Daily Mode
Enter actual takings for each day of the week individually. This is the recommended approach because it gives you per-day wage percentages in the Daily Breakdown Bar.
Example:
| Day | Actual revenue | Labour cost | Wage % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | £800 | £310 | 38.8% |
| Tuesday | £850 | £310 | 36.5% |
| Wednesday | £1,100 | £380 | 34.5% |
| Thursday | £1,200 | £420 | 35.0% |
| Friday | £1,800 | £490 | 27.2% |
| Saturday | £2,200 | £560 | 25.5% |
| Sunday | £650 | £210 | 32.3% |
This reveals that Monday and Tuesday had poor labour efficiency (close to 40%), while Friday and Saturday were well below target - valuable insight for future scheduling.
Weekly Mode
Enter your takings so far for the week as one total. Use this if you only have a weekly figure from your till system or accountant.
- Days already recorded are kept, including days filled in from your POS. Only the rest of the total is split, evenly, over the blank days that are already over.
- Today is left out, because it is not over yet: "Enter it in Daily once the day is done".
- A total below what is already recorded is refused, because the days you have are already worth more.
- On the first day of a week, no day is over yet, so the modal says "No day this week is over yet".
Daily mode is strongly recommended for venues with uneven trading patterns (which is most hospitality businesses). A weekly total masks important day-level information.
What You See After Entering Actuals
Once actual revenue is recorded, the rota view updates in two places.
The actual wage % always uses actual labour: published shifts only, with any shift covered by an absence or approved time off swapped for that day's SSP or holiday pay. Draft shifts are not counted, so publish the rota to see it. See Planned and Actual Labour.
Budget Tracker
The bottom row of the Budget Tracker shows both percentages:
- Primary (bold): "Actual wage X% of net revenue" - the labour on the days with takings recorded, as a share of those days' takings.
- Secondary (lighter): "Forecast: Y%" - the original estimate for comparison.
Only the days with takings recorded are compared, so a week that is part way through is not skewed by labour on days you have not entered yet. Until every day has a figure, the tracker says how many days it covers, for example "Actual wage 34% of net revenue (revenue for 3 days)". A day you enter as £0, such as a closed day with a stock-take shift, counts as recorded, so its labour is included.
If takings are recorded but nothing on the rota is published yet, the tracker shows "Publish the rota to see the actual wage %" instead.
This dual display lets you see at a glance whether your forecast was accurate and whether your actual labour efficiency met your target.
Daily Breakdown Bar
Each day in the breakdown bar shows a wage percentage. When actual revenue has been entered for a day and the rota has published shifts, the percentage switches from forecast-based to actual-based and is marked with a small A indicator.
- Days with actual revenue: published labour for that day as a share of its real takings, marked with A.
- Days without actuals: the planned cost against the forecast (the existing behaviour).
Hover over any day's percentage to see the full detail - "Actual: published shifts are 34.5% of £1,100 revenue" or "Forecast: 35.0% of £1,000 forecast".
Future Days Are Locked
You can only enter actual revenue for days that have already passed. The current day and all future days are greyed out in the entry modal - you cannot record takings for a day that has not happened yet.
For the current week, this means you can enter actuals for days already completed while leaving the rest for later.
Copy from Forecast
If your actual takings were close to the forecast, click Copy Forecast in the modal, then adjust only the days that differed. It fills only the blank days that are already over with that day's forecast, or a seventh of the weekly forecast when the week has no daily split. Days already recorded are left alone, and the button is disabled once every day so far has a figure.
Multi-Location Support
Actual revenue is tracked per location, per week - matching how rotas and budgets are structured.
The Revenue Actuals Needed widget on the dashboard shows all locations with missing actuals, so a multi-site operator can work through them in one session rather than navigating to each site's rota individually. It never asks about a site you have closed.
| Location | Week | Missing days | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Street Cafe | w/c 10 Mar | 7 days | Enter |
| Station Road Restaurant | w/c 10 Mar | 3 days | Enter |
| High Street Cafe | w/c 3 Mar | 2 days | Enter |
For multi-location operators, set a weekly routine: every Monday morning, open the StaffBrik dashboard and enter last week's actuals for all sites. This takes a few minutes and ensures your labour cost data is always up to date.
Automatic Sync from Your POS
If your venue has a POS system connected to Brikly, actual revenue can be automatically synced from your daily sales data. This runs overnight and fills in any days where you have not already entered a figure manually.
How It Works
- Each night, Brikly checks your POS daily sales summaries for locations linked to a rota.
- For any past day in the last 4 weeks (the same 4 weeks the dashboard checks) where the actual revenue is still empty, it fills in that day's net takings. So a rota built late, or a site linked to the POS later, still gets its takings.
- The weekly total is recalculated from all available daily values.
What the POS Figure Includes
The POS figure is your net takings: ex VAT, ex card tips, and less the ex-VAT part of any refunds. For Square this is the same as Square's Net Sales. Gift card sales are already left out.
A refund comes off the day it was given, not the day of the original sale.
A day with no sales on a POS-linked site, between trading days, is recorded as £0 from the POS, so a regular closed day stops showing as missing. You can still change it by hand if the site was open.
Days that were auto-synced from POS are marked in the Actual Revenue modal so you can see at a glance which figures came from your till system and which you entered by hand.
Manual Entries Always Take Priority
The sync never overwrites a value you have entered manually. If you type in a figure for Tuesday, that figure stays - even if the POS data for Tuesday arrives later. This means you are always in control of the numbers used for your wage percentage.
If you do enter a manual value for a day that was previously synced from POS, the system updates the figure and notes that it is now a manual entry.
When POS Sync Is Not Available
If your venue does not have a POS integration, or if your POS is not yet connected, actual revenue entry is fully manual. You can enter figures from your till reports, accounting system, or any other source.
Even with POS sync enabled, it is worth reviewing the auto-populated figures periodically. POS takings may include items you want to exclude from your labour cost calculation, such as deposits for a private booking. If the synced figure does not match what you consider "real" revenue for that day, simply overwrite it - your manual entry takes priority.