XN POS

Avero & XN POS

XN POS is supported for Sales data only.

Avero processes and presents data from your XN POS for your analysis and insight. This article details how to install, handle POS changes, make updates to this data, and how to handle discrepancies or problems you might encounter. 

In this article:

• About XN POS
• Installation & Reinstallation
• Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes
  • Configuration Information 
  • Change or Add a Meal Period
  • Change or Add a Revenue Center
• Common Problems 
  • Missing Data
  • Data Discrepancies - Avero's sales data is not matching XN
• Frequently Asked Questions About XN

About XN POS

POS Type: Export

Avero is proud to offer Free Installation & Reinstallation for XN POS, and most POS systems.

XN POS is an Export POS system, meaning that your data is stored by your POS and XN POS creates and sends a daily export to Avero. If data is missing, incomplete, or inaccurate, you'll need to work with XN POS support to resend this information. 

Differences between XN POS & Avero 

XN POS sends us an export containing your sales data, but some reports may be calculated differently. XN POS uses the term Zones where Avero uses the term Revenue Centers or the abbreviation RVC.

If you notice a difference between XN POS and Avero, please report it to Avero Support for investigation and explanation. Open a ticket with Avero Support to request investigation or explanation. 

Installation & Reinstallation on XN POS

XN POS sends data via an export from your system. You don't need to be installed to start using Avero! Even though data isn't flowing yet, you'll be invited as an Avero user right away to begin setting up your Logbook and exploring our platform! 

Export Systems

Your POS provides a daily export containing the sales data by property. Installation of Avero consists of your POS provider enabling the export to the correct specifications, sending the data, and an Avero install technician connecting the data to your business and verifying the connection, configuration, and presence of data.

There are three steps to installing:

1. Request XN POS enable the export and send sales data to the provided Business ID
2. Confirm with Avero the export is enabled.

Request the Export

Your initial email from the Avero Install Team will contain the information you'll need to request XN POS create and send your export: Your Avero Business ID (numeric) or Property Code (alphanumeric)

Reach out to XN POS and request they create and send the export to the provided business ID. 

Confirm the Export

Once XN POS has confirmed the export is sending daily, reply to Avero to confirm you are ready to proceed. 

Schedule the Installation

Avero Installs must have at least 2 days of valid exports before we cannect your data to Avero.

Regular Maintenance: Making Updates and Changes for XN POS

When changes or updates are needed who is responsible? If something appears incorrect or out-of-date, how should it be updated?

Change or Add a Meal Period in XN POS

Important to note - Meal Period changes/additions will not automatically update your logbook or saved reports. 

For XN POS, once you change your meal periods in your system they should be reflected in the next POS export that Avero receives. If you don't see your meal period data reflected correctly, open a ticket with XN POS support to request the export be updated with your current configuration information. 

Change or Add a Revenue Center in XN POS

You can change or add zones to your XN POS configuration and see them reflected in Avero as soon as the next day. Changing a zone's name will only affect the data moving forward. Please note XN POS exports are tied to a single Business ID and so if you want to add an outlet, XN POS will need to be able to send a discrete export to the new ID. Please confirm with XN POS if this is possible with your configuration before making the request to Avero. 

To add a revenue center, add it to your XN POS system and all RVCs/Zones in the export will be reflected daily. 

To add a new outlet, or "business" in Avero, for revenue centers to be routed to, open a ticket with Avero Support to request by providing the Revenue Center Name and ID and informing the support team of the correct spelling of the new outlet. Please note XN POS exports are tied to a single Business ID and so if you want to add an outlet, XN POS will need to be able to send a discrete export to the new ID. Please confirm with XN POS if this is possible with your configuration before making the request to Avero. 

To change an outlet name, open a ticket with Avero Support. Changing the name of a revenue center must be done in XN POS, but the business it reports to ('Business' box in report generator, name on the logbook) will be changed by Avero. 

To remove an outlet, request XN POS exclude the Zone from the export, if this is possible with your configuration. Avero cannot disallow individual Zones from being processed. 

Categories & Items in XN POS

Avero provides the following Global categories: Beverage, Food, Misc., Other, and Retail. The major and minor categories come from your POS. When pulling the data from XN POS, there is only one category level—this is unique to XN POS. See our complete guide to 

To make changes to items you'll need to update XN POS - changing an item name, price, or moving it between categories.

To make changes to major/minor categories you'll need to update XN POS - changing category names, updating which items are in a category, making categories more specific. 

To make changes to global categories, you'll need to open a ticket and request Avero makes the change. For example, if Appetizers are appearing under Beverage and need to be moved to Food. 

When creating new Categories, they may default to Other and require a ticket to update this mapping. 

To read more see: Categories

Common Problems

It is very important to keep an active connection to your POS server should you ever need Avero Support to access the server and assist. 

XN POS Missing Data

If the export is missing or incomplete, you may experience missing data in the Avero platform. With export systems the only way to recover this data is for you, the customer, to request XN POS resend the export. Avero cannot load or reload any data unless XN POS has first sent the corrected export. 

Data Discrepancies - Avero's sales data is not matching XN POS

If you notice your sales data is not matching up with your XN POS reports, there are three actions you need to complete:

1. Make sure the data discrepancy exists in Avero by logging in and running a sales report. If you notice incorrect data in an emailed report, it may be related to email settings and not the data itself. See our troubleshooting guide: Troubleshooting Email Reports with Missing or Incomplete Data
2. Run a Daily Sales Report from XN POS for the date in question, Open a Data Ticket, attach the report and explain the discrepancy. Make sure to include the report, the date, and profit center or location if you have access to several, as well as any examples you can provide. 

Our team investigates all data discrepancies - due to the nature of our daily data extraction a single date and single-day sales report must be provided. We cannot investigate date ranges, but it is helpful to know if the issue is recurring and you can provide multiple dates. 

Programming XN POS for Data Quality - Menu Setup

This is a guide to programming categories and items within XN POS to provide the best insights via Avero reporting. 

Updating XN POS Programming or Programming a New XN POS System

Different POS systems require some degree of configuration for the data to display correctly in Avero and be analyzed effectively. An understanding of your POS categories and how Avero handles your categories is needed to make changes. Avero provides the following Global categories: Beverage, Food, Misc., Other, and Retail. The major and minor categories come from your POS. When pulling the data from XN POS, there is only one category level—this is unique to XN POS.

Categories are an essential element when viewing Avero reports - this is how to apply the business intelligence that Avero provides to your operation. Categories with enough detail enable you to analyze your operation from a financial viewpoint and also better evaluate server performance. Category mapping decisions should be made with input from the chef, the FOH, and the accounting teams so all needs are met.

Sales & Reporting Categories in XN POS

In XN POS, it is important to distinguish between Sales and Reporting categories. Categories must be set up as Sales Categories in order for you to gain the most insights from Avero reports. This is an important point to make when discussing your category setup with your XN POS reseller or programmer. Only items in Sales Categories will translate into revenue in Avero. 

Creating Categories in XN POS

Your XN POS provider has experience with creating new sales categories for a new installation. The categories are guided by your requests. Understanding how your categories will show up in Avero will help you direct your POS reseller to create your categories. See our examples below. 

Modifiers – Zero Dollar ($0) or Add-on Sales ($)

In XN POS, modifiers are treated like items and may or may not have a dollar value attached to them. We recommend that you create an additional category called ‘Modifiers.’ By putting these in one auxiliary category, the percentage of category sales metric will not be skewed. This also allows the opportunity to report specifically on the success of upsell campaigns focused on add-ons, such as adding fixings to a burger or sides to a lunch order. 

Remapping Current Items to New Categories

When creating new categories in an existing XN POS installation, we recommend creating one category at a time and then moving all appropriate items into the new category that you just created. For instance, if you are working with what is currently ‘Food’ in XN POS, you should:

1. Create the new ‘Apps’ sales category
2. Move all Appetizer items from ‘Food’ into the new ‘Apps’ category
3. Move on to the next category

This will eliminate confusion and expedite the process.

Please note: DO NOT reuse old sales category names; always create a new category. Additionally, the new categories will take effect in Avero from the date you move the items forward. The changes will not show in the product prior to that date; the sooner you can get it done, the better.

Recommended Categories

Below are the common categories we see and how they roll into Avero's Global Categories, which are above the POS Categories. These sub-categories may come directly from your printed menu.

Under Avero’s Global Food Category:

• Appetizers (including specials, prix fixed items, banquet items, salads, soups)
• Entrees (including specials, prix fixed items, banquet items)
• Sides
• Desserts
• Dollar Food Modifiers – Add-on sales
• N/A Beverages (*may be considered as a beverage category)

Under Avero’s Global Beverage Category:

• Beer
• Liquor
• Wine Bottle
• Wine Glass
• Specialty Cocktails (including all margaritas, sangrias, sake)
• N/A Beverages (*may be considered as a food category)
• Coffee/Espresso
• Dollar Bev Modifiers – Add-on sales (up charge)

Under Avero’s Global Misc. Category:

• Zero Dollar Bev Modifiers (rocks, no salt)
• Zero Dollar Food Modifiers (allergy, fire, seat #)

Examples of how menu organization may impact reporting:

Frequently Asked Questions About XN POS

Why don't Avero's sales look the same as my XN POS reports?

XN POS sends us an export containing your sales data, but some reports may be calculated differently. 

XN POS uses ZONES which will be represented as REVENUE CENTERS in Avero. 

Is there any information XN POS doesn't export to Avero?

There are some data limitations you may notice based on what we receive from XN POS. 

• Item-level promotion information, so all promotions will appear as check-level promotions and the Category/Item/Employee related to the promotion will not be displayed. Read more about the difference between promotion levels here: Understand Gross Sales and Net Sales 
• Item Cost, so reporting on COGS or Menu Engineering is not available.
• $0 Modifiers, so no-cost modifiers will not be seen in your Item Sales Report. All revenue-generating items will be present.  
• Cashier Information, if you have cashiers closing checks in lieu of the servers, this data is not included. Only the server for the check is listed.
• Covers - XN POS does not provide cover counts / guest counts, so you will not be able to report on Cover Counts or Check Averages by Cover as a result. 
• Meal Periods - XN POS does not support Meal Periods /  Day Parts, so all sales will be listed in a default ALL DAY meal period. 

Does Avero pull credit card information from my XN POS system?

No. Avero pulls payment type information, such as what type of card is used and the amount of the payment from all systems. We do not have access to, collect, or store full credit card numbers, customer names, or any such identifying information from your POS export.