| Purpose | Understand why a summary figure such as Total Room Revenue cannot always be filtered by transaction-level fields. |
| Best for | Anyone building or troubleshooting a custom report in Cloudbeds Insights. |
| Use this when | You apply a filter such as Transaction Status, Transaction Type, or Tax Type to a report that includes a summary figure, and Cloudbeds Insights indicates that the fields do not work together. |
| Requirements | A custom Cloudbeds Insights report that includes an aggregated or summary figure and a transaction-level filter. |
| Expected result | You can identify when a transaction-level filter is incompatible with a summary figure and choose a field or filter setup that matches the level of detail you need. |
| Limitations | A summary figure cannot follow a filter down to transaction-level detail when the figure itself is not recorded at that level. |
Introduction
Filters are part of how a Cloudbeds Insights report is defined. Even when a field does not appear as a column or row in the report, using it as a filter can change the level of detail the report is asking for.
This matters when you combine a summary figure, such as Total Room Revenue, Total Revenue, Rooms Sold, or Grand Total, with a transaction-level filter such as Transaction Status, Transaction Type, or Tax Type.
This article explains why those combinations can trigger an in-product message and what to use instead.
Why a transaction-level filter does not work with a summary figure
Summary figures are calculated at broader levels, such as per reservation, room, or night. Transaction-level fields describe individual charges.
When you filter by a transaction-level field, the report narrows the data to individual transactions. An aggregated figure cannot follow that filter down to the transaction level when there is no accurate way to assign part of the summary figure to each individual charge.
A filter counts as part of the report. The transaction-level field does not need to appear in the grid to affect whether a summary figure can be calculated at that level.
This behavior can be easy to miss because the field causing the conflict may only appear in the filter settings. The report itself can otherwise look unchanged.
Example: filtering Total Room Revenue by Transaction Status
Total Room Revenue is a summary figure. Transaction Status describes individual transactions.
If you filter Total Room Revenue to show only a specific Transaction Status, the filter asks the summary figure to follow individual transaction detail. Because Total Room Revenue is not recorded per transaction, there is no accurate way to determine which part of that summary figure belongs to each transaction status.
Cloudbeds Insights therefore alerts you to the incompatible combination rather than presenting a value that could be misleading.
What to do instead
Choose the field or filter setup based on whether you need transaction-level detail or the broader summary figure.
- Use Debits or Transaction Amount when you need a transaction-level filter. These figures are recorded per transaction, so they can be filtered by transaction-level fields such as Transaction Status, Transaction Type, or Tax Type.
- Remove the transaction-level filter when you need the summary figure. Without the finer filter, the summary figure can remain at the level where it is calculated.
Related articles
Now that you understand how transaction-level filters affect summary figures, review these resources for the broader level-of-detail concept and the related scenario where transaction detail is displayed directly in the report:
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