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Your First 10 Minutes: Reporting in commonsku

Your First 10 Minutes: Reporting in commonsku

Five reports, ten minutes, full visibility into your business performance.

Most distributors we talk to aren't short on data. They're short on time to find it. That's why we built this guide.

commonsku's reporting suite is where those answers live. Whether you're an owner trying to protect margin, a sales manager tracking pipeline, or a rep staying ahead of reorders: there's a report for that.

Your 10-Minute Reporting Checklist

If you only have ten minutes, run them in this order.

Your 10-Minute Reporting Checklist

The ten minutes that set up your whole week

1

Pull the Sales Rep Report

An instant snapshot of open orders, pipeline value, and margin across your team. ~3 min

2

Layer in Activity, Pipeline, and Sales Dashboard Reports

Track what reps are creating, what's actively in play, and what's converting. ~4 min

3

Go Deeper with Advanced Reports

Compare reps, clients, and suppliers across time periods, then act on repeat order opportunities. ~3 min

The result: your pipeline, your team's numbers, and your margins. All in one sitting.

Step 1: Start with the Sales Rep Report (3 minutes)

The Sales Rep Report is the most-used report in commonsku. It's the right answer to roughly 60% of reporting questions.

commonsku Sales Rep Report showing open orders, margin summaries, and form status filters

This report runs on two things: form type and creation date.
Want to see all open sales orders right now? Set the form type, clear the order date filter, hit Get Report.

A few things worth knowing:

Export for more fields. The on-screen view only shows so much. Export it and you'll unlock additional columns, including client tags.

Switch rep filter to "All." By default, the report only shows active reps. If someone left the team, their orders won't appear unless you toggle this to include inactive reps too.

Summaries are at the top. Total open value, booked margin, billed margin: it's all rolled up before you even scroll.

💡 PRO TIP

commonsku's Sales Rep Report feeds directly into the Sales Dashboard and management views, giving owners and managers a unified view of what's open, what's booked, and what's been invoiced. No need to pull data from multiple places.

Step 2: Track Activity, Pipeline, and Conversions (4 minutes)

Three reports that show you what your team is creating, what's in play, and what's actually closing.

The Sales Rep Report tells you what's open. These three tell you what's happening with it.

Report

Sales Activity Report

Shows how much each rep is creating: presentations, estimates, merch projects, over a given timeframe. It's a measure of output, not outcome. If one of your reps created nine presentations last week, they could be at any stage now. This is your activity pulse check.

High activity but low conversion? That's a coaching conversation worth having.

Report

Sales Pipeline Report

Shows what each rep has open right now. Activity tells you what was created. Pipeline tells you what's still in play. You'll see total open presentations, estimates, and their forecasted dollar value. Drillable, so you can click into any number and see the individual merch projects behind it.

A rep with a thin pipeline heading into next quarter? Better to know now than after the fact.

Report

Sales Dashboard Report

This is your conversion report. It shows what was created, booked, and invoiced in a given period.

One thing to understand: these three numbers will rarely match, and that's expected. A $1,000 order created in January, PO'd in February, and invoiced in March will appear in a different column depending on which month you're viewing. Pull it for the full quarter and you'll see the complete picture.

💡 PRO TIP

The Sales Dashboard is the engine behind commonsku's management dashboard, giving owners a rolled-up view of every rep's numbers in one place. No spreadsheet required.

Step 3: Go Deeper with Advanced Reports (3 minutes)

For Advanced and Enterprise users: compare reps, clients, and suppliers across any two time periods.

Advanced Reports

Available on Advanced and Enterprise plans

Rep Comparative Report

Compare any rep's performance across two time periods: this month vs. last month, this quarter vs. last year's quarter. Great for spotting trends, flagging dips, and preparing for one-on-ones. Seasonal business? This is especially valuable for year-over-year comparisons.

Client Comparative Report

Same structure, but for your clients. See which accounts are growing, which are shrinking, and what's driving the change. Proactive reps use this ahead of the quarter to set revenue targets by account, not just look back at what happened.

Vendor Spend Report

Track your PO spend by supplier across any two time periods. Useful for supplier negotiations, buying group reporting, and measuring how much of your business is flowing through Connected+ suppliers vs. manual workflows.

💡 PRO TIP

Tag your Connected+ suppliers in commonsku and use the Supplier Spend Report to track adoption and spend in one view. It's a direct way to show your team the operational case for using Connected+ suppliers.

One More Report Worth Knowing: Products Sold

Available on Essentials and above. See exactly which products you've sold, who sold them, how often, and at what margin.

One of the most-requested additions to the platform. Use it to:

Identify cross-sell gaps. A client buying a lot of apparel but no hard goods? That's a call worth making.

Review supplier performance by product category. See which suppliers are delivering and which aren't pulling their weight.

See what's actually moving vs. what's just getting quoted. If you're quoting a product ten times and selling it twice, that's worth a closer look.

What to Do Next

Start with the Sales Rep Report. Open it, clear the date filter, and pull all your open orders. Get comfortable with the filters and export before moving on.

Bookmark the Sales Dashboard. Run it for this month and last month side by side. If the numbers surprise you, that's a signal worth investigating.

Explore one Advanced report. If you're on Advanced or Enterprise, open the Rep Comparative or Potential Repeat Order report. Both take under two minutes to run.

Schedule one report. Pick the report you run most often. Save it, schedule it, and stop running it manually.

Have questions about your reporting setup? Reach out to your CSM or contact us at support@commonsku.com.

New to commonsku? See how the platform works.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I pull a quick sales report for my promo business?+

Use the Sales Rep Report in commonsku. Set the form type, clear the date filter, and hit Get Report to see all open orders, total pipeline value, margin summaries, and form statuses across your team. Export it for additional fields not visible on screen, including client tags. Full details in the help docs.

How do I check where my team's pipeline stands as a promo distributor?+

In commonsku, use the Sales Activity Report and Sales Pipeline Report together. The Sales Activity Report shows how many forms a rep created in a given period — it measures output. The Sales Pipeline Report shows how many forms they currently have open — it shows what they're actively working. Activity tells you what was created. Pipeline tells you what's still in play.

How do promotional products distributors find reorder opportunities?+

In commonsku, the Potential Repeat Order Report surfaces clients who may be ready to reorder based on your order history. Available on Advanced and Enterprise plans. Reps use it to proactively surface reorder opportunities and take action — create a task, copy the order, or dismiss it. Managers use it to confirm their team is actually working these leads.

What sales reports do promo distributors need to run every week?+

At minimum, five: the Sales Rep Report for open orders and margin, the Sales Activity Report for rep output, the Sales Pipeline Report for what's actively in play, the Sales Dashboard Report for conversions, and the Rep Comparative or Client Comparative Report for trend analysis. In commonsku, all five can be run in about ten minutes. The comparative reports and report scheduling require an Advanced or Enterprise plan. See plan details.

Can I schedule automatic sales reports for my promo business?+

Yes. In commonsku, on Advanced and Enterprise plans, you can save any report with preset filters and schedule it to be emailed as a CSV export on a recurring basis — daily, weekly, or monthly.

How do I see which products my team is actually selling vs. just quoting?+

The Products Sold Report in commonsku, available on Essentials and above, shows every product sold by SKU, supplier, rep, and margin. Use it to identify cross-sell gaps, review supplier performance by product category, and compare what's moving against what's just getting quoted. Full details in the help docs.

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