Tutorial 6 — Read your numbers
Time: about 10 minutes. You will learn what each report is actually telling you, and which one to look at for which question.
Owner only. Staff cannot open Reports at all — the screen is not there for them. That is why it is one of the three areas reserved for you as the owner.
The one idea behind every report
NairaFlow's reports are cash-basis. They count the money that has actually moved.
Money In sums what was received — not what was sold.
This is the difference that confuses people, so it is worth being precise:
| Recorded as a sale | Counted in Money In? | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer paid ₦4,500 in cash | Yes | Yes — ₦4,500 in |
| Customer bought ₦4,500 on credit | Yes | No — nothing has arrived yet |
| Customer later paid the ₦4,500 | It becomes a debt repayment | Yes — ₦4,500 in, on that day |
So a credit sale is money you are owed, and it appears in your receivables — not in your cash flow — until it is actually paid. This is why a day can show a big sale and no matching money in. That is not a bug. It is the truth.
The Dashboard — your morning check
Open NairaFlow and you land here. It answers one question: how is the business doing today?
| Tile | What it means |
|---|---|
| Money In | Cash, transfer and POS payments received today |
| Money Out | Cash spent today on purchases, expenses and supplier payments |
| Net Cash Flow | Money In minus Money Out |
| Total Receivable | Money owed to you, still outstanding |
| Total Payable | Money you owe suppliers, still outstanding |
| Net Debt | Receivable minus payable — who is ahead |
| Low stock alerts | How many products are at or below their threshold |
| Recent transactions | Your last five records |
A worked example
Say today you sold ₦2,000 of groceries for cash, took ₦2,350,000 for two phones with a ₦50,000 discount, and did a ₦15,000 screen-protector installation:
Money In ₦2,415,000
Money Out ₦0
Net Cash Flow ₦2,415,000
And separately, you sold a phone on credit for ₦1,200,000. Your dashboard shows Total Receivable ₦1,204,500 — it is not in Money In, because it has not been paid.
Two minutes each morning: check Money In against what you actually took, and check the low-stock count. That is the whole habit.
The Cash Book — every movement, in order
Reports → Cash Book.
This is your complete ledger of every financial movement, newest first. Each row shows:
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Date and time | When it happened |
| Type | Sale, Purchase, Expense, or Debt Repayment |
| Contact | Who it was with |
| Amount | How much |
| Payment method | Cash, Transfer or POS |
Filter by type
The filter is the useful part. Use it to answer specific questions:
| Filter | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Sales | What did I sell, and what came in |
| Purchases | What did I buy, and what went out |
| Expenses | Where did the money actually go? |
| Debt repayments | Which customers paid me back, and when |
Setting up a business is a numbers job. When you are choosing between two suppliers, filter the cash book by Purchases and read the last month. That is the real cost of your stock, and it is usually not the one on the price list.
The page size
The cash book loads 20 rows at a time. Load more, or filter by date range and a type to narrow it down.
The Period Summary — your month in review
Reports → Period Summary. Set a start and an end date, and you get:
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Money In | What came in over that period |
| Money Out | What went out over that period |
| Net Cash Flow | The difference |
| Transactions | How many records there were |
This is the report for a weekly or monthly review. Set it to the last 30 days and ask three questions:
- Did money come in? Money In against what you expected.
- Where did it go? Money Out, and which expenses dominate.
- Was it worth it? Net Cash Flow — positive means the period made you money.
The All-Time Totals — the big picture
Reports → All-Time Totals. Three numbers since you started:
- Total sales
- Total purchases
- Total repayments
This is for scale, not for month-to-month decisions. It answers "how big is this business?", not "how was last month?".
The Daily Summary — one day in detail
Reports → Daily Summary, with a date.
More granular than the dashboard, and it is where you find out what is happening in your business, not just what you collected:
| Figure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Total sales | What you took |
| Total expenses | What you spent |
| Gross profit | Sales minus the cost of what you sold |
| Net cash in | What actually arrived |
| New customers | How many new people bought from you |
| Leads received | How many new enquiries came in |
| Low stock items | What needs restocking |
| Booked orders | How many bookings came in |
New customers and leads received are the growth numbers. If they are flat while your sales rise, you are selling more to the same people — which is fine, but worth knowing.
The Business Overview — this month against last month
Reports → Business Overview. Pick a period — this month, last month, this week, or a custom range — and NairaFlow shows a snapshot across everything, next to the previous period for comparison.
This is the report to look at when you are deciding whether to change something. Is profit up or down? Are expenses creeping? Are sales channels shifting?
The Revenue Trend — over time
Reports → Revenue Trend. A time series of revenue, so you can see whether you are trending up or having a bad month. Useful when a single period looks alarming and you want to know whether it is a blip or a trend.
Exporting your data
Six lists can be exported to CSV: contacts, transactions, invoices, supplier invoices, products and debts.
CSV export is on the Growth plan and above.
Why export
- Your accountant. Give them a CSV of the period and they can work in whatever they use.
- Your own records. Keep a copy outside the app.
- A spreadsheet. CSV opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice.
The file is a clean CSV, ready to open. Exports are capped at 10,000 rows — beyond that, narrow the date range.
There is no bulk import. You can get your data out, but you cannot paste a spreadsheet in. If you have a year of history in a spreadsheet, plan for entering the opening balances by hand.
Reading the numbers honestly
Three habits that stop the reports from misleading you:
1. Money In is not revenue. Revenue is what you sold; money in is what arrived. The gap is your receivables, and it is worth watching.
2. An expense is not the same as a purchase. A purchase brings stock; an expense is a cost. Both are money out, but only one leaves you with something to sell. When you are looking at profitability, they are not the same thing.
3. A discount is not revenue. If you gave ₦500 off, the sale was worth ₦8,500, not ₦9,000. NairaFlow's reports already handle this.
What you have now
You can look at your business and know what it is doing.
Next, let someone else help — without giving away the keys.
If something did not go as expected
| What happened | What to do |
|---|---|
| Money In is lower than my sales | Credit sales do not count until they are paid. Check your receivables |
| There is no money out for a customer paying a debt | Debt repayments are money in — the money that went to the supplier was a purchase |
| I cannot see Reports | Staff cannot open them. Ask the owner |
| The export button is missing | CSV export is on the Growth plan and above |
| The export is cut off at 10,000 rows | Narrow the date range |
| A named period looks wrong | Named periods run up to the moment you open the report, not to midnight |
| My totals do not match my cash book | The cash book shows gross amounts; the dashboard nets off discounts |
| I want last month's exact figures | Use a custom date range rather than a named period |