Modifying Reports: Better Insight Into Past, Future
Unlocking the full potential of QuickBooks goes beyond mere data entry. The real power lies in leveraging its robust reporting tools to gain deeper insights into your financial past and make informed decisions for the future. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to modify QuickBooks reports, helping you extract the most valuable information from your financial data.
Setting Up Your Reporting Preferences ⚙️
QuickBooks offers both cash and accrual basis reporting. To review or change your reporting basis:
- Go to Edit | Preferences | Reports & Graphs | Company Preferences.
- Choose between Cash or Accrual basis for summary reports
- Set other preferences that affect report output
Figure 1: You can establish a preference for your summary reports’ basis here.
You can set other preferences in this window that will affect your report output here, too, as you can see.
Modifying Report Display 🖥️
Let’s say you’re running the Income by Customer Summary report:
- Change Date Range: Choose your desired date range.
- View by Different Time Periods: Select Columns and pick intervals like Four Week or Quarter.
Figure 2: You can do some report display alterations from this toolbar; the options it offers vary by report.
By default, your report rows display alphabetically. If you want to view a column by total in ascending or descending order, select the column by hovering over the top number until the magnifying glass appears, and click on it. Click the arrow next to Sort by and choose Total, then click the AZ [down arrow] icon (in some reports, there will be other options here).
Additional options in this toolbar let you:
- Memorize the report
- Print, email or export it to Excel
- Hide or Show the Header
- Collapse or Expand the columns
- Refresh the report if you’ve made changes that will alter data
Customize Reports for Deeper Insights 🎛️
Hit Customize Report to tweak your report further:
Figure 3: This window outlines your report’s content options.
Some of the options here duplicate what you saw in the toolbar. In addition, you can switch between Accrual and Cash for just this report, and add subcolumns in some. The latter is a complicated operation, one that you must understand well in order to glean any insight from it. We can help you with this.
Sometimes the subcolumns are generic, as shown in the screen above. In other reports, they’re very specific to that group of data.
Need to return to the default? Simply click Revert. For advanced report options, use Advanced to unlock specific controls based on the report.
Customize Transaction Reports 🗂️
More customization = more insightful results = more informed financial choices
Transaction reports have many similarities and two major differences: You can change the column order by hovering your cursor over the column label until a hand appears. Click, hold and drag the column to the desired spot and let go. You can also add or delete columns by clicking Customize Report and checking or unchecking labels.
Figure 4: In transaction — or detail — reports, you can alter the column structure.
Learn the mechanics of report display modification well, and your company’s finances will come into much sharper focus, improving the wisdom of future choices. Up next month: filtering your reports for additional clarity.
Next Month: Filtering Reports for Extra Clarity ✨
For more on this or other QuickBooks features, reach out! We’re your partner and here to help your business grow.