The Income by Category & Item report gives you a clear view of how much income your venue made over a selected period, where it came from, and how much estimated tax (for GST or VAT) was involved. It also handles some of the more complex VAT calculations required for UK venues.
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Use it to answer questions like:

Looking for the full story behind every transaction?

Income is the value of the items your venue sold during the selected period, after discounts and relevant adjustments, with GST or VAT separated out.

It is not always the same as the amount of money received during that period.

For example:

This report records the income when the menu item is considered sold, rather than relying only on when the money changes hands.

Let's take a look at the reports in the top section of the page...

The Income Summary gives you the headline figures for the selected period, showing your total income and separating out the GST or VAT included.

This is your clean income number and a useful baseline for the period.

👉 Think of this as: “If I strip everything back… what did the business actually earn over this period?”

The Income by Category chart shows where your tax exclusive income came from across your menu categories, showing you:

The Payment Breakdown shows where payments and other income came from during the selected period, including card, cash, Bustle Online, accounts, vouchers and any manual account adjustments.

The donut graph only shows positive values, so any negative amounts - such as a £40 account adjustment - won’t appear in the graph. They’ll still be included in the breakdown and final totals.

See your income by category, then expand each category to view the individual items within it.
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Values may look slightly non-rounded (e.g. 280.72)
That’s just the maths doing its thing across lots of transactions - and applying discounted amounts, or partial payments (e.g. hospo + card payments on one bill).
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Income from items where GST or VAT applies, shown before the tax amount is added.
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​Zero Rated Sales (for UK) / Income (no GST) (for AU+ NZ)

Income from items sold at a zero VAT or GST rate.

This is most commonly relevant for UK venues.

The combined income from items with GST or VAT on them, plus zero-rated/no GST items.

The percentage of your venue’s total income contributed by that category or item.

For example, if Coffee shows 25%, one quarter of the income for the selected period came from coffee sales.

This report's focus is on providing income by item and category, rather than the quantity of each item sold. If this kind of information would help you run your business better, reach out and let us know.

👉 If you’re looking for how many items were ordered, other reports are better suited for that. Try the GP on Items Ordered report or the Sales Category Summary.

The Payment Breakdown shows how the income was paid for or recorded.

It brings together:

These figures are used to calculate the final income for the period.

This includes payments received through:

These are combined under Total Money Received.

When a discount or a hospo payment is applied across an entire transaction, Bustle divides it proportionally across all items in the order.

This means each item and category receives its share of the discount based on its original value.

For example, imagine an order contains:

Food made up 80% of the original order, so $4 of the discount would be applied to food. The remaining $1 would be applied to coffee.

The report will then show the income for each category and item after its share of the discount has been applied.

Some UK sales may be charged at the standard VAT rate, while others may be zero rated.

Bustle calculates VAT at the item level, including any modifiers attached to that item.

If the main item is zero rated, the modifiers attached to it are also treated as zero rated.

For example, if a takeaway iced coffee is zero rated, any alternative milk, extra shots or syrups added to it will follow the same VAT treatment.

The income for these Items and Mods will appear under Zero Rated Sales rather than standard VAT sales.

This helps UK venues separate items sold with VAT on them from zero-rated items when preparing their VAT returns or entering income figures into their accounting systems.

When an order is assigned to a customer account, the items are considered sold and the income is recorded straight away.

The outstanding account balance then represents money owed to the venue.

When the customer later pays the account, Bustle records the payment received but does not count it as new income. The income was already recorded when the original order was placed on the account.

The journey looks like this:

👉 So the timing can feel a bit out of sync.

If a sale happens in one period and gets cleared in another, the numbers won’t line up perfectly in each view.

Zoom out to a longer date range and it’ll usually click into place.
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Changes made to account balances can affect the income shown in the report.

These may include:
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Cleared Account Balances
A balance that has been cleared or written off.

Because the venue no longer expects to receive that money, it is removed from income.
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Account Adjustment Debits

A manual debit added to an account balance.
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Account Adjustment Credits

A manual credit added to an account balance.
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Discounts on Account Payments

A discount applied when an account balance is paid.

These adjustments help the report reflect the final value of the account income.

Vouchers work in the opposite direction to accounts. The voucher represents value the venue still owes the customer.
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When a voucher is purchased, the payment is received but no item has been sold yet. The income is recorded later, when the voucher is redeemed and used to purchase an item.

The journey looks like this:

This prevents the voucher from being counted as income twice.

Gratuity is not considered sales income in this report.

Gratuities are intended for staff rather than the business, so they are removed before the final income figure is calculated.

The calculation is:

Total Payments
− Gratuity
− GST or VAT
= Total Income

You can view the full gratuity detail in the Sales Transaction Summary report.

Refunds are not included in the Income by Category & Item report.

To view refunds and the full detail behind your sales activity, use the Sales Transaction Summary report, which includes the wider reconciliation of your orders and payments, including:

There are a couple of specific situations where the tax figures in this report may differ from other Bustle reports. Here’s what to look for and what you can do.
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If you sell a zero-rated item with a paid modifier, the Income by Category & Item report calculates the VAT or GST correctly, but the Sales Transaction Summary may calculate the tax on the modifier differently.

For example:

Takeaway iced coffee - £4
Extra shot - £1

If the iced coffee is zero rated, the extra shot should follow the same zero-rated tax treatment. This is handled correctly in Income by Category & Item report, but can create a variance when compared with the Sales Transaction Summary.

What to do

Where possible, set up a zero-rated alternative price for the item. This ensures both the item and any paid modifiers use the correct tax treatment and keeps the figures consistent across your reports.

There is another edge case involving zero-rated items that are charged to customer accounts.

When the item is first added to the account, Bustle calculates the tax correctly. However, if a manual debit or credit adjustment is later made against the account, the adjustment may not always follow the same tax treatment as the original items.

In some cases, the adjustment may be treated as taxable when it relates to zero-rated income. This can cause the VAT figure to be incorrect and create a small variance in the report.

What we're doing

We're working on improving how Bustle records the tax treatment of account adjustments so these scenarios can be handled more accurately in future.