Operator's Journal
What Is a Z-Report? A Simple Guide for Restaurant Owners
A Z-report is your end-of-day summary. Learn what it shows, how to read it, and how it helps you find missing cash.
Published byDashDine Editorial Team
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 3 min read
Topics
The Z-report closes your day
A Z-report is a summary of one day of sales. You print or check it when the restaurant closes. It tells you how much you sold and how guests paid.
In the past, the Z-report came from a cash register. Today, a restaurant system can build it for you from every order.
What a good Z-report shows
In DashDine, the Z-report shows:
- Total revenue and net revenue
- Tax and refunds
- Completed, cancelled, rejected and voided orders
- The average order value
- Payments by type, such as cash, card and online
- Tips and promo discounts
- Your top-selling dishes
How to read it in five minutes
- Check total orders. Does the number look normal for the day?
- Check payments by type. Count your cash drawer and compare it with the cash total.
- Check card payments against your card machine report.
- Look at cancelled and voided orders. Ask your team about any you don't expect.
- Check promo discounts. Make sure no one used a code they shouldn't.
Why the numbers sometimes don't match
Most differences come from three things:
- A payment was recorded with the wrong type, for example card instead of cash.
- An order was finished but never marked paid.
- A refund was given in cash but not recorded.
In DashDine, finishing an order and paying for it are separate. So an order can be served and still show as unpaid. That makes missing payments easy to find.
Close the day the same way every day
Pick one person to close each day. Use the same steps every time. Keep the Z-report for every day, so you can compare weeks and months.
In DashDine, you find it in Reports, under Z-Report. You can filter it by branch and date, export it and print it again any time.
A closing checklist you can print
Put this list next to the counter and follow it every night:
- Close or finish every active order.
- Record any payment that is still open.
- Count the cash drawer.
- Print or open the Z-report for the branch and the day.
- Compare cash, card and online totals.
- Write down any difference and the reason.
- Close the service session.
Questions owners ask
Is the Z-report the same as the sales report? Not quite. Sales reports help you see trends over weeks. The Z-report is the record of one day, used to check the money.
Who should close the day? One trusted person per shift, usually a manager or senior cashier. When the same person closes every day, mistakes are easier to spot.