Field notes
Settling same-store sales definitions before the next board pack
When a regional manager and a finance lead use different cut-off dates for renovations, the same-store line on page three of the monthly pack stops being a shared fact. For mid-size retail chains in Vietnam, that disagreement shows up most clearly when a store reopens after a fit-out or when a temporary kiosk is treated as a full location.
Start with three written rules: the minimum open days in the comparison month, how renovations longer than a set number of days are excluded, and whether franchise or concession counters sit inside the same-store set. Put those rules on the cover note of the pack so leadership sees them every month.
We also recommend a short appendix listing stores that entered or left the set in the last quarter. Executives rarely need the full estate list, but they do need to know why a cluster suddenly looks stronger or weaker.
If your POS extract cannot flag renovation periods cleanly, keep a simple operations calendar in the shared folder and treat it as part of the monthly close. The calendar takes less time than reopening the definition debate in every review call.