For Square users who track labour vs. sales:

LizBEOS — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:22:10 GMT

For Square users who track labour vs. sales:

I’m a multi-location Canadian Square merchant and I’m curious how other business owners use the Labour vs. Sales percentage when making staffing decisions.

Do you consider the percentage Square shows to be your actual total labour cost, or do you separately add things such as salaried staff, employer payroll costs, vacation pay, benefits, workers’ compensation, etc.?

If you do calculate those separately, how are you doing it today — spreadsheet, payroll report, accounting software, or something else? And roughly how much time does it take you each week?

I’m not selling anything — I’m trying to understand how other Square merchants are handling this to see if there is a trick to the trade.

Re: For Square users who track labour vs. sales:

SVLFever — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:43:12 GMT

Hello @LizBEOS . It's a great question. I am "sort of" using the labor tracking percentage in Square. Interestingly, it is about 1.5% off lower than what I'm actually operating at, as things like vacation and sick pay are not part of the standard report.

What I have found though is that it is "consistent in comparison", meaning that I know when I go above my scheduling goal of 30%, I'm operating higher than I would like, and I look at ways to decrease my cost accordingly. It works well for an "internal" number of monitoring for me, and I just know it's about 1.5% lower than what I'm really doing.

So yes, I use it, but with that awareness.

thread For Square users who track labour vs. sales: in Staff & Payroll

For Square users who track labour vs. sales:

Re: For Square users who track labour vs. sales: