Find your slowest nights: reading your Toast or Square report against Gainesville’s calendar

We read Toast’s and Square’s help pages on September 25, 2026. The menu names below are theirs.

In Toast: the Sales Summary

In Toast Web, go to Reports > Sales > Sales summary, or pick Sales summary under Quick Actions on the home page. Choose Custom date, set the range and select Apply. Toast says the report has no date range limit.

The top of the report, Sales Trends, holds three bar graphs: sales by date, day of week totals and time of day totals. For one night or one stretch of hours, open More filters.

It narrows the report to specific hours, days of the week, revenue centers or service areas. Export it with the download arrow, as CSV or XLS (Excel). The file keeps your filters.

Toast “records a sale when a check is first opened, not when the payment is processed.” Its own example: with lunch set at 12 to 3 p.m., a check opened at 11:50 a.m. is left out of lunch. So a table opened just before your dinner hours counts outside them, however late it pays.

In Square: the Dashboard, not the app

In the Square point of sale app, open More, then Reports > Sales. It filters by time of day, and a team member with Square’s limited reporting permission sees the past 90 days there. For full history, sign in to Square Dashboard. Square says users with its detailed reporting permission see “full historical data, comparison charts, and trends” there.

In the Dashboard, go to Reports > Sales summary, set the dates and open the controls. Under Report type you can “summarize by group, hour, or day”. Reports > Sales > Sales trends lets you “compare two time periods” by gross sales, net sales, average total sale or order count. The sales summary prints and exports.

Square’s sales summary counts only completed (closed) orders. A tab still open when you pull the report is not in it yet.

How many weeks, and how to average them

Toast’s day of week graph shows totals, not averages, so the number of each night in your range matters. Take 90 days, the range Square’s app gives a team member with limited reporting:

90 days ÷ 7 = 12 weeks, with 6 days left over

Six nights of the week appear 13 times and one appears 12 times, so that night’s total comes up one night short against the rest. Pick whole weeks instead. 12 weeks is 84 days, and every night appears 12 times.

Source: Square Support Center, “View sales summary, sales trends and payment methods reports”, for the 90 days. Vendor documentation. The counts per night are our arithmetic.

Square’s own blog puts the next step in one line: “calculate your sales per hour, for each day of the week, using a Sales Summary Report.” With your own numbers:

Net sales on your Tuesdays ÷ the number of Tuesdays = an average Tuesday

An average Tuesday ÷ hours open on a Tuesday = sales per hour on a Tuesday

Do it for every night you open. Take the weeks marked below out of the average, a whole week at a time, so every night keeps the same count. Read those weeks on their own.

The Gainesville dates to mark first

These come from UF’s 2026-27 catalog and the Gators’ 2026 schedule, as posted on October 11, 2026. UF says all its dates may change, so check both again before you read your report.

Mark the away games too. On Saturdays: September 19 at Auburn, October 3 at Missouri, October 17 at Texas, October 31 against Georgia in Atlanta and November 14 at Kentucky. Then Friday, November 27, at Florida State. No game is listed for Saturday, October 24.

Your report shows whether a home game fills your dining room or empties it.

Compare like with like

The first seven Saturdays of this fall are enough to start: one before classes, two with classes and no game, three home games and one away game. Fill in the lines below from your report: net sales and orders, and guests if your system counts them.

Weeknights work the same way. Set a Tuesday in Thanksgiving break or spring break beside the Tuesdays before and after it, not inside the average.

What the sheet does with it

At a restaurant or bar, a walk’s sheet can start from this report, in English or Spanish. Our page on restaurants and bars lists what else the walk looks for. The sheet decides the first fix, and it is often a monthly reading of the same report: which nights sit empty, what sold and what changed since last month.

If a texting list for your slow nights makes sense, it is built only from guests who signed up in writing. Florida counts a text sent to sell as a sales call (F.S. 501.059).

Our rule: written consent from every guest on the list, with the four parts set out in our texting article. Texts go only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., at most one a day.

Where to start

Pull 12 whole weeks by night of the week, mark the dates above and fill in the seven Saturdays. If you would rather hand the report over, we work from an export you run or a user seat of our own, never a shared password. See how a walk works.

Sources, in plain words

• Toast Support, “Sales Summary Report Overview”, last updated May 7, 2026. Vendor documentation. https://support.toasttab.com/en/article/Sales-Summary-Report
• Square Support Center, “View sales summary, sales trends and payment methods reports”. No date shown on the page; its page data says last changed April 23, 2026. Vendor documentation. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5381-in-app-summaries-and-reports
• Square, The Bottom Line, “How to Optimize Your Hours of Operation”, by George Lee, January 30, 2023. Vendor blog, used for its method only; it gives no figures. https://squareup.com/us/en/the-bottom-line/operating-your-business/optimize-hours-operation
• University of Florida Catalog, “2026 - 2027 Dates and Deadlines”. University calendar; UF notes that “all dates and deadlines may be subject to change.” https://catalog.ufl.edu/UGRD/dates-deadlines/2026-2027/
• Florida Gators, 2026 football schedule, text view, as posted on October 11, 2026. University athletics schedule. https://floridagators.com/sports/football/schedule/text
• Florida Statutes (2026), section 501.059(1)(j): a text sent to sell counts as a telephonic sales call. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0500-0599/0501/Sections/0501.059.html
• All pages read on September 25, 2026. UF and Gators pages read again on October 11, 2026.

Questions and answers

What is the slowest night of the week for a restaurant?

For your place, the one your own point-of-sale report shows across like weeks. In Toast, the Sales Trends graphs at the top of the Sales Summary include day of week totals. In Square Dashboard, set the sales summary to summarize by day. Use a range of whole weeks, so every night appears the same number of times, and set break weeks and game Saturdays apart before you compare.

How do I see sales by hour in Toast?

In Toast Web, open Reports > Sales > Sales summary. The Sales Trends graphs include time of day totals, and More filters narrows the report to specific hours and days of the week. Toast records a sale when the check is first opened, not when it is paid. As checked on September 25, 2026.

How do I see sales by hour in Square?

In Square Dashboard, go to Reports > Sales summary and, under Report type, summarize by hour. The point of sale app filters by time of day too, and a team member with limited reporting sees the past 90 days there. Users with the detailed reporting permission see full history in the Dashboard. As checked on September 25, 2026.

Which Gainesville dates should a restaurant mark in 2026-27?

UF’s breaks, finals and commencements, and the Gators’ home games. Thanksgiving break is November 23 to 28, fall finals December 5 to 11, spring break March 13 to 20 and spring finals April 24 to 30, with commencement April 30 to May 2. The home games are September 5, 12 and 26, October 10, November 7 and November 21. UF says its dates may change, so check again before you read your report.

Can I text guests about a slow night?

Under our rule, only guests who signed up in writing. Florida counts a text sent to sell as a sales call (F.S. 501.059). The consent has four parts, and texts go only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., at most one a day. One STOP ends every text.

Read next

• Texting your customers in Florida: five rules in plain wordsWhat a missed-call text may say, when you need written consent and how to handle STOP.
• Florida security deposits: the 15-day and 30-day dates, built into your move-out listWhen the deposit goes back, when the claim notice must go out and how it may be sent, from F.S. 83.49, with a move-out list that counts both dates.