Financial Reporting
Financial Reporting – QuickBooks
offers some of the strongest financial reporting capabilities in all
of accounting software. The screen above displays the Report Finder –
a utility that helps you locate the report you are looking for. With
the Report Finder, you can browse the reports related to what you are
interested in, briefly learn what each has to offer, and locate exact
reports by search terms. When you find the report you want, you can
display it in the Report window, just as if you had created the report
by choosing its name from the Report menu. If you don't need to view
the report in the Report window, you can print the report or send it
to Excel directly from the Report Finder. You can also customize the
report's content, filter the report, or change the report's date range
without displaying the report. This is a faster way to create,
modify, or print reports.
The reports menu shown above also provides
an extensive listing of reports, organized by accounting module.
Once you have printed a report to the
screen, the real reporting power of QuickBooks starts to shine. As
shown in the screen below, buttons at the top of each report make it
easy to modify, memorize, print, or export the report to Microsoft
Excel.
For example, the Modify Report dialog box
allows you to specify the date range, toggle cash or accrual, add
sub-columns, and choose from a variety of display columns. You can
also control the sorting of data and add columns showing percents to
totals. The Advanced button allows you to suppress the printing of
zero balance amounts, rows, or columns.
The display columns pull down shown below
is particularly powerful as it allows you to indicate the types of
columns to be displayed. This pull-down is also available at the top
of the displayed report, as “Columns”.
For example, here is the same report
presented with two different column formats:
The first report shows P&L data by
customer and job, while the second report displays the same P&L data
by item sold.
Adding Or Deleting Report Columns -
Reports that list individual transactions can display additional
columns of data. To do this, click Modify Report and from the Display
tab, click Add Columns and select the columns you want to add. To
delete columns, clear the checkmark for each column you want to
delete. As a tip, the column titled "left margin" adds white space
along the left edge of the report. By deleting this column, you can
gain some extra room for report data.
Refresh Button - The refresh button
appears in the toolbar of every report and graph. If refresh is
needed, a message appears in the title bar indicating that the report
or graph doesn't reflect the latest changes to your company data.
Memorizing a Report – Whenever you
change the settings for a report, you can memorize the report with the
new settings. Then, when you want to create a similar report, you can
recall it from your own list of memorized reports. When QuickBooks
memorizes a report, it memorizes your custom report settings, not the
data in the report. If you want to save actual data, export the report
to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. After you have customized a report,
click Memorize on the report button bar.
If you have recalled a memorized report
and changed it, indicate whether you want QuickBooks to replace the
earlier report (under the same name) or create a new memorized report
(under a new name). If you want to assign the report to a memorized
report group, select Save in Memorized Report Group, then choose the
group from the drop-down list. The memorize report dialog box is shown
below:
Print Breaks – QuickBooks provides a smart
feature that can insert page breaks in your reports so that groups of
information remain together. Or, to conserve paper, QuickBooks can
insert as few line breaks as possible. This option is shown in the
dialog box below:
Once you proceed to print reports, you
will find a wide number of print options available – some of which
will differ slightly depending upon the printer you are printing to.
A nice feature to always use is print
preview. In many cases, you can access the information you need
without actually printing the report to paper. Printing to paper not
only takes time, but it costs money for paper and toner, and creates
wear and tear on your printer. Ultimately the reports you print will
need to be burned or thrown away in a land fill or garbage heap. Why
eat valuable time and money – use the screen and avoid printing on
paper whenever possible.
A complete listing of all of the standard
reports produced by QuickBooks is shown below:
