Z-Report Deep Dive
The Z-report is the authoritative closing document for a shift. It answers one question: what happened at the club during the shift, and how much money should be in the register. Understanding each section makes discrepancy investigation faster and financial handoffs more accurate — both for the owner reviewing business performance and for the admin handing over the register.
To open any Z-report: go to Shift History → select a shift → full report.
Why the Z-report matters
Section titled “Why the Z-report matters”A shift closes at unpredictable times — end of a work day, mid-afternoon when one admin hands over to the next, or late at night when the last client logs off. The Z-report freezes the exact financial state of the club at that moment. Without it, two problems compound quickly:
Register reconciliation becomes guesswork. An admin counting cash without a reference figure cannot tell whether a shortage is a transaction error, a missed top-up, or an actual loss. The Z-report supplies the expected figure so that any gap is immediately visible and measurable.
Period reporting loses granularity. The P&L by period report aggregates revenue over days or months, but if you need to understand why Tuesday’s revenue was lower than Monday’s, you open each shift’s Z-report and compare line by line. Shift-level data is the atomic unit of club financial management.
Report sections
Section titled “Report sections”Accrual revenue
Section titled “Accrual revenue”The total value of all services rendered during the shift — including payments made with bonus balance.
Formula: Charges − Refunds = Accrual revenue
This metric reflects the true volume of business regardless of how clients paid. If a client spent 300 in bonus points and 700 in cash, accrual revenue is 1000. The club provided 1000 worth of service — the bonus part was a loyalty obligation fulfilled, not cash received, but the service was still delivered.
Accrual revenue is the correct metric for comparing shift performance over time and for understanding whether a promotion drove real consumption or just payment method substitution. For period-level revenue tracking see P&L by period.
Charges and refunds
Section titled “Charges and refunds”Charges — all amounts billed to clients during the shift:
- Gaming sessions (by tariff type: hourly, multipass, promotional)
- Bar items (drinks, food, merchandise)
- Combo packages (session + drink bundles sold as a unit)
Each charge is posted at the moment of service — a session is charged when it starts (for prepaid tariffs) or when it ends (for postpaid). This means a session that starts in one shift and ends in the next will appear in the shift during which it was charged, not split between them.
Refunds — amounts returned to clients. Refunds reduce the shift’s accrual revenue directly. A refund is logged when an admin cancels a posted charge and returns value to a client’s balance or in cash. Common refund scenarios: admin error in tariff selection, client complaint resolution, or a technical issue that cut a session short.
Watching refunds across shifts is a useful control signal. One or two per shift is normal. A pattern of frequent refunds from a specific admin or on a specific tariff warrants investigation.
Payment methods
Section titled “Payment methods”A breakdown of how money was received:
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cash | Physical money collected in the register drawer |
| Card | Payments processed via POS terminal |
| App | Payments made through the IZI mobile app |
| Bonus balance spent | Bonus points redeemed (not real money) |
The sum of Cash + Card + App equals the cash revenue for the shift — the amount of real money the club received. This is always lower than or equal to accrual revenue because bonus payments contribute to accrual but not to cash.
The cash line is what the admin counts at handoff and compares against the register total. If cash in drawer equals the cash line, the shift is balanced. If it differs, the investigation starts here: check each transaction type that could affect the drawer (cash top-ups, cash refunds, cash charges) and trace any that were recorded under the wrong payment method.
Bonus block
Section titled “Bonus block”- Bonuses earned — total bonus points credited to clients during the shift (for example, from a top-up bonus program)
- Bonuses spent — total bonus points redeemed by clients
Bonus points are a liability to clients. If more bonuses were earned than spent in a shift, the club’s outstanding loyalty obligation grew. This is not a cash flow event — bonuses are not money — but it is an accrual obligation that will reduce future cash revenue when those bonuses are spent.
For clubs running aggressive top-up bonus programs, tracking the earned vs spent ratio per shift is important. A shift where bonuses earned significantly exceeds bonuses spent means the club is accumulating a future liability. For context on how bonus programs are configured, see the top-up bonus program guide.
Gaming balance
Section titled “Gaming balance”The net change in client prepaid balances during the shift:
- Top-ups credited to client accounts
+ - Session charges deducted from client balances
−
The remaining balance at shift close represents funds that clients have deposited but not yet spent on gaming time. This is not revenue — it is a prepaid liability. The club holds this money on behalf of clients until they use it.
The gaming balance block helps reconcile top-up cash receipts. If a client topped up 500 in cash during the shift, that 500 appears in the Cash payment method line as a top-up. The gaming balance block shows the same 500 as a balance increase. Both should be consistent.
Revenue by category
Section titled “Revenue by category”Accrual revenue broken down by service type:
| Category | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Sessions | Gaming time across all tariff types — hourly, multipass, day passes |
| Bar | Drinks, food, in-club merchandise sold separately |
| Combo | Bundled session + drink packages sold as a single unit |
This breakdown shows the revenue mix for the shift. A shift with high bar revenue relative to sessions may indicate a busy food-only period or a successful combo upsell. A shift with low sessions during peak hours may indicate a technical problem with the booking system or tariff configuration.
Comparing revenue by category across multiple shifts surfaces trends that a single total figure obscures. If sessions revenue is flat week-over-week but bar revenue is growing, the upsell training for staff is working.
Cash in register
Section titled “Cash in register”The expected cash amount in the register at shift close. The admin counts the actual cash and compares it against this figure.
How the figure is calculated: opening cash balance carried from the previous shift, plus all cash received (top-ups, cash charges, cash payments), minus all cash paid out (refunds in cash, cash expenses logged in the system).
A non-zero discrepancy requires investigation — see shift discrepancy. Discrepancies fall into two broad categories:
- Transaction recording errors — a payment was taken in cash but recorded under card, or a top-up was done in cash but not logged. These are fixable by finding the misclassified transaction and correcting it.
- Actual cash differences — cash is physically missing or there is more than expected. These require admin accountability procedures.
Small rounding differences (under 1 unit of local currency) are usually system rounding behavior and not a real discrepancy.
How to read the report: review checklist
Section titled “How to read the report: review checklist”Run through these five checks every time you review a Z-report:
- Accrual revenue — is the overall shift volume consistent with what was expected for this time of day/day of week? A weekend evening shift should look different from a weekday morning shift.
- Payment methods → Cash line — verify against the physical register count. Any difference goes into discrepancy investigation immediately.
- Bonuses earned vs spent — is the net bonus obligation growing or shrinking? A chronic imbalance (earned far exceeds spent) means the club is building a significant deferred liability.
- Refunds — are there any non-standard cancellations? One refund is normal. Three in a single shift from the same admin is a pattern worth examining.
- Shift comment — the admin is required to leave a note at close. If it is blank or vague during a shift where discrepancies exist, that is itself a management signal.
Export and archive
Section titled “Export and archive”The Z-report can be printed or saved as PDF from the Shift History interface. All shifts are stored indefinitely — there is no expiry or archiving cutoff. Historical shifts from the first day the club used IZI remain accessible at any time.
If a fiscal printer is connected to the club, a fiscal Z-report is generated in parallel at shift close. The two documents — IZI Z-report and fiscal Z-report — should show matching totals for cash and card payments. If they diverge, the fiscal document takes legal precedence for tax purposes, and the discrepancy must be investigated before filing. More detail: Cash register integration.
Common mistakes when reading the Z-report
Section titled “Common mistakes when reading the Z-report”Treating accrual revenue as cash revenue. The two differ whenever clients pay with bonus points. Cash revenue = accrual revenue minus bonuses spent. Using accrual revenue as the figure for bank deposit reconciliation will always show a surplus equal to the bonuses spent that shift.
Ignoring the gaming balance block. Owners sometimes focus only on revenue and miss that a large top-up at end of shift moved cash into the register without appearing in revenue. Top-up cash is in the register — it just isn’t revenue yet.
Skipping refund review. A shift that looks profitable in accrual terms may have an outsized refund total reducing the net. Accrual revenue is already net of refunds, but checking the refund count and reasons separately tells you whether the headline number is clean or is masking service problems.
See also
Section titled “See also”Frequently asked questions
When is the Z-report generated?
The Z-report is generated automatically when an administrator closes the shift. Before closing, shift data is visible in real time in the Shift section of IZI.
How is the IZI Z-report different from a fiscal Z-report?
The IZI Z-report is a software report inside the CRM covering all system operations. A fiscal Z-report is a document from a fiscal/tax printer required by tax authorities. The totals should match, but they are generated independently.
What does accrual revenue mean?
Accrual revenue is the total value of all services rendered, including payments made with bonus balance. If a client spent 300 in bonus points and 700 in cash, accrual revenue is 1000 while cash revenue is 700.
Can I view a Z-report from a past shift?
Yes. All closed shifts are available in Shift History with no time limit. Open any past shift to see the full Z-report.
Why might the cash in register figure not match what the admin counted?
Common reasons include unrecorded cash-out transactions, a refund issued in cash that was not logged, or a top-up received as cash but posted to the wrong payment method. Compare the payment methods breakdown line by line against physical receipts to isolate the discrepancy.