New Sales Report

The New Sales Report focuses exclusively on first-cycle (initial) transactions — the very first charge attempt for each order. This gives you a precise view of your sales funnel performance: how many transactions were attempted, how many succeeded, how many customers you acquired, and how much revenue those initial orders generated. It's your go-to report for understanding acquisition efficiency.

What This Report Includes

This report covers all first-cycle transactions grouped by the date the offer was created. It includes both direct sale transactions and authorization-then-capture flows, giving you a complete picture of initial order activity.

Transactions Included:

• First-cycle transactions only (initial billing cycle, excludes rebills and subscription renewals)
• Sale and authorization transaction types
• Looks at the transaction's line items
• Test orders are excluded
• Date range is based on Order Created Date (when the order was created)

Why This Matters: Your initial sale is the entry point for every customer relationship. Understanding approval rates, decline patterns, and the mix of recurring vs. one-time sales helps you optimize both your acquisition funnel and your payment processing strategy.

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Revenue calculations depend on your Company Profile settings for shipping and tax inclusion.

Report Metrics

Total Transactions

The total number of first-cycle transaction attempts during the period, including both successful and declined transactions. This is your top-of-funnel number — every attempt to process an initial order.

Successful Transactions / Successful Transactions Rate

The number and percentage of first-cycle transactions that were approved by the payment processor. Your successful transaction rate is one of the most important operational metrics — it directly determines how much of your sales effort converts to revenue.

Declined Transactions / Declined Transactions Rate

The number and percentage of first-cycle transactions that were declined. Declines represent lost revenue and potentially lost customers. Breaking down decline reasons (available in other reports) helps identify whether the issue is with card quality, processor routing, or fraud filters.

Authorizations / Successful Authorizations / Successful Authorization Rate

Authorization transactions reserve funds on a customer's card without immediately capturing payment. The successful authorization rate shows how often these holds are approved. A low authorization rate may indicate issues with your payment gateway configuration or the customer payment methods being used.

Declined Authorizations / Declined Authorization Rate

Authorizations that were rejected by the payment processor. These customers had their card checked but funds could not be reserved.

Captured Authorizations / Captured Authorization Rate

The number and percentage of successful authorizations that were subsequently captured (converted to actual charges). A gap between successful authorizations and captured authorizations may indicate fulfillment delays, order cancellations, or manual review processes.

Sales / Successful Sales / Successful Sale Rate

Direct sale transactions (where authorization and capture happen simultaneously) and their success rate. Most subscription businesses primarily use sale transactions rather than auth-then-capture flows.

Declined Sales / Declined Sale Rate

Direct sale transactions that were declined by the payment processor.

Total Customers

The number of unique customers who had at least one first-cycle transaction attempt during the period. Each customer is counted once regardless of how many transaction attempts they had.

Successful Customers / Successful Customer Rate

Customers who had at least one successful first-cycle transaction. This is your true customer acquisition number — the people who actually completed a purchase.

Declined Customers / Declined Customer Rate

Customers whose first-cycle transactions were all declined. These are potential customers you failed to convert due to payment issues. Reducing this number through better payment routing or retry logic directly increases your customer base.

Total Orders

The total number of unique orders attempted during the period. An order may contain multiple transaction attempts if the first attempt was declined and retried.

Successful Orders / Successful Order Rate

Orders that resulted in at least one successful transaction. This rate accounts for retry logic — an order that failed on the first attempt but succeeded on a retry is counted as successful.

Declined Orders / Declined Order Rate

Orders where all transaction attempts were declined. These represent fully lost sales opportunities.

Recurring Transactions / Recurring Transactions Rate

The number and percentage of successful first-cycle transactions that are associated with recurring subscriptions. This tells you what share of your new sales will generate ongoing revenue.

One Time Sale Transactions / One Time Sale Transactions Rate

Successful first-cycle transactions that are one-time purchases with no recurring component. Tracking the mix of recurring vs. one-time helps you forecast future revenue.

Revenue

The total revenue generated from successful sale transactions and captured authorizations during the period. This represents actual money collected from first-cycle orders. Only successful, non-declined transactions contribute to this number.

Available Dimensions

Dimensions let you group, filter, and drill into your data. Select any dimension to break down your metrics by that attribute.

Key Business Insights

1. Successful transaction rate is your conversion rate for payments. Even small improvements — from 85% to 88% — translate to significant revenue gains at scale. Monitor this daily and investigate any sudden drops immediately.

2. Customer success rate vs. transaction success rate reveals retry effectiveness. If your customer success rate is higher than your transaction success rate, your retry and routing logic is recovering sales that would otherwise be lost.

3. Recurring transaction rate predicts future revenue. A high percentage of recurring first-cycle sales means your new sales are creating long-term value, not just one-time revenue spikes.

4. Order success rate is the truest measure of sales performance. Because it accounts for retries within an order, it shows your actual ability to convert purchase intent into completed sales.

5. Declining authorization capture rates may indicate operational issues. If you authorize successfully but don't capture, investigate whether fulfillment bottlenecks or manual review queues are causing delays.

Optimization Strategies

Improve Transaction Approval Rates Work with your payment processor to optimize routing rules, ensure billing information collection is thorough, and implement intelligent retry logic for soft declines. Even a 1-2% improvement in approval rates compounds into substantial revenue over time.

Reduce Customer Decline Rates Analyze declined customers to identify patterns — are declines concentrated in certain geographies, payment types, or offer price points? Use this data to adjust your checkout flow, add alternative payment methods, or implement address verification.

Optimize the Recurring vs. One-Time Mix If your business model favors recurring revenue, test strategies to convert one-time buyers into subscribers — such as subscribe-and-save discounts, subscription upsells on the thank-you page, or defaulting to recurring at checkout.

Monitor Authorization-to-Capture Gaps If you use auth-then-capture flows, ensure the time between authorization and capture is minimized. Authorizations expire, and customers may dispute charges they don't remember authorizing days earlier.

Pro Tips

1. Enable hidden columns for deep analysis. The default view shows the most important metrics, but enabling columns like Declined Authorization Rate or One Time Sale Rate can reveal specific optimization opportunities.

2. Compare weekday vs. weekend performance. Transaction approval rates often vary by day of week due to bank processing patterns. Understanding these patterns helps you time promotions and set realistic daily targets.

3. Use this alongside the Subscriptions LTV Report. New Sales tells you how well you acquire customers; Subscriptions LTV tells you how much those customers are worth. Together, they give you the full acquisition-to-value picture.

4. Watch for declining order success rates over time. A gradual decline may indicate your traffic quality is changing, your fraud filters are too aggressive, or your payment processor needs attention.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does this report only show first-cycle transactions? A: This report is specifically designed to measure new sales and acquisition performance. Renewal transactions (cycle 2+) are tracked in the Subscriptions LTV and Sales LTV reports, which focus on lifetime value rather than initial conversion.

Q: What's the difference between a Sale and an Authorization? A: A sale transaction authorizes and captures payment in one step — the customer is charged immediately. An authorization only reserves funds on the customer's card; a separate capture step is needed to actually collect payment. Both are tracked in this report.

Q: Can a single customer appear in both the Successful and Declined counts? A: No. Each customer is classified based on their best outcome. If a customer had one declined transaction but then a successful one, they are counted as a Successful Customer only.