Sales and margin
Sales by item over any period, with purchase rate against sale rate alongside it, shows which lines carry the business and which are turnover without profit. In the material trade this matters more than most, because rates move and a selling price set three months ago against a purchase price that has risen since is the commonest way to be busy and unprofitable at once. Sales by party, by day and by staff login answer the rest.
Money in and money out
Outstanding by party with ageing tells you what is recoverable and what is drifting. Payables by supplier with ageing tells you how much of your working capital is actually theirs. Seeing both at once is the real picture: a shop with eight lakh out and six lakh owed is in a different position from one with eight lakh out and nothing owed, even though the sales look identical.
Stock and what it is worth
Item-wise movement over any date range separates lines that are genuinely seasonal from lines over-ordered once and never shifted — and the second category is usually where a surprising share of a shop's capital has gone. Stock valuation runs on landed cost including inbound freight, so the year-end figure is what the stock cost rather than an estimate.
Three numbers worth checking monthly
Turnover alone describes nothing, because a shop can grow turnover while losing money. The three figures that actually describe a month are gross margin on your main lines, the change in total outstanding against last month, and closing stock value against the month before. Rising turnover with rising outstanding and rising stock is not growth — it is working capital leaving the building.
Reports on the phone, not only at the shop
The reports that get used are the ones available when the question occurs to you, which is rarely while sitting at the counter. Sales for the day, a party's outstanding, whether an item is in stock, what a customer was last charged — all of it opens on the Android app in a few seconds. That matters most when you are standing in front of a supplier negotiating, or on the phone to a contractor who is asking for one more load. Having the figure in the conversation is worth more than having it in a monthly review.