QuickBooks Custom Reports: Empowering Financial Decision-Making

We all know that reports are snapshots of a company's financial health. 

They are the linchpin of success when it comes to decision-making. 

Whether you run a small business or a large corporation, the daily generation of data, which includes customer information, order specifics, employee transactions, and marketing and advertising expenditures, is unavoidable. 

Accurate accounting for this data is required to manage cash flow and secure profits for your company effectively. This wealth of data is painstakingly compiled into reports that comprehensively understand the company's financial landscape and aid in strategic decision-making. 

Custom reports take this process beyond standard templates by allowing users to tailor their analyses, resulting in a more personalized and insightful approach. These reports are essential for quickly establishing a smooth vendor workflow, enabling quick insights and efficient analysis.

And this is where QuickBooks comes in handy!

QuickBooks Reports clearly show essential company metrics like sales, expenses, profit, and loss. This is complemented by the easy-to-use Dashboard, which briefly explains your company's activities and incredibly insightful quick shots for daily operations.

That is precisely what this blog will cover: utilizing QuickBooks Custom Reporting! Let's dive right into it.

What are QuickBooks Custom Reports?

Any business must have a financial report, which acts as a compass to understand cash flow dynamics and the organization's overall performance. 

QuickBooks Custom Reports are distinguished by their rigorous arrangement and clear structure, enabling businesses to derive valuable insights from unprocessed data.

Understanding that every company has different needs, QuickBooks Custom Reports provides a very flexible framework. Because of this flexibility, users can customize reports to match the metrics and features most important to their specific business needs.  

These reports go beyond a one-size-fits-all methodology, enabling companies to derive the insights required for strategic planning and well-informed decision-making. You can make completely new reports from scratch or modify already-existing QuickBooks reports. It is, thus, simple to monitor the data that is most important to your company.

The Reports Section of your Dashboard offers three easy-to-sort categories for reporting:

Standard Reports: QuickBooks Online includes a library of default reports housed in this section. Your data is already pre-populated into these reports, making them usable immediately. It consists of all the standard financial reports necessary for running your company.

Custom Reports: This is a collection of reports you and your team have created, edited, and saved. With the help of this feature, reporting can be customized to meet the unique metrics and insights essential to your company.

Management Reports: Management reports give your presentations a polished appearance. They are distinguished by a cover page, table of contents, and specific areas for opening commentary and endnotes. With three pre-designed templates available in QuickBooks Online, you can easily enhance your reports for targeted audiences or events. 

Overall, our research reveals four common categories of reports accessible:

• Transaction Reports, which arrange transactional data in different configurations. This is where you will find essential reports, including your profit & loss statement and balance sheet.
• List Reports contain information on your Chart of Accounts, Products/Services list, and Customer and Supplier lists. 
• Summary and Detail Reports provide different rollups of the information contained within each report type, as their names imply. 

How to make Custom Reports in QuickBooks Online Advanced?

QuickBooks Online Advanced offers a seamless customization process for creating a tailored report that fits your business needs precisely. Here's how to create and modify your report, step by step:

• Check that you are logged in as an Administrator.
• Navigate to the Business Overview section and select Reports.
• Select +Create New Report, then select the report type and click Create.
• Click on the pencil icon 🖉 to enter or edit the report name.
• Save your report and, if necessary, export the data to a spreadsheet for easy storage and retrieval in the future.

How do you view your Custom Reports?

Here's how to view custom reports:

• Navigate to Business Overview and select Reports.
• Choose Custom Reports.
• Click on the name of the report to select and open it.
• Click on any field in the report row to open the transaction in a new tab and view the transaction in detail.

Customization Options Available:

Date Range Dropdown: Decide which dates your generated data covers.

Pivot: Choose Pivot to add up all of the data in your report. 

Here's how it is done: 

1. Select which fields in the rows and columns to categorize, then select the value field for summarization. 

2. Click "Show Totals" to add a totals row or column. 

3. After you have chosen Rows, Columns, and Values, the report view will appear as a pivot table. 

4. To return to the original view, uncheck "Show Pivot Table."

Group:

1. Click Group to sort line items by any column. 

2. Click on Edit Group Calculations to compute totals, averages, or percentages for numerical groups. 

When a report is grouped, choose Expand to see the details within that group. When grouping by the first column, hierarchical grouping options are available but cannot be combined with other options. 

Filter:

1. Click the Filter button to see only specific entries. 

2. Select the filtering criteria, operation, and values. 

Tip: You can use multiple filters.

Customize: Select Customize to define the number and content of the report's fields. 

Here's how it is done: 

1. Choose Columns, then find a topic to report and select it to reveal the available fields. 

2. Select any field in the report that you want to see. 

Note: Not all fields in a report will function together. Non-compatible fields will not be available when you select a field. These fields show up in this list if you use custom fields. 

3. Select Layout and drag the listed fields into the desired order to modify the order of the selected fields. 

Note: Use "Show/Hide" to make a field visible or invisible.

Visualizing Custom Reports

Adding a chart view to your report will improve its aesthetic appeal and quickly transform your data into graphics suitable for a presentation.

Here's how:

• Open your customized report.
• Select Chart View.
• Select the chart type that best meets your data visualization needs.
• Adjust which fields appear on the Horizontal (X) and Vertical (Y) axes using the dropdown options.
• When you are done visualizing, click the Save button to save your chart-enhanced report.

Scheduling Emailed Reports

Schedule emailed reports with QuickBooks to easily automate your reporting process. To set up scheduled reports, simply follow these steps:

• To open the report, click on its name in the Custom Reports tab.
• Select "Schedule Report."
• Enter a descriptive name for the Workflow. 
• Choose a start date and frequency of delivery for the report. For example, if you want it to be sent every other Monday, enter 2, Week, and Mo.
• Fill in the recipient's email address.
• Give the email a succinct subject and message.
• Save your preferences and turn on the scheduling.

Go to Settings and Manage Workflows to change or update the scheduled report frequency. 

How to generate Custom Reports in QuickBooks Online?

Generating a Report

• Visit Reports [Take me there].
• Locate and launch your desired report.
• Use basic filters to change the report dates.
• Click Customize to open the customization window.

Tailoring Your Report

• Use multiple filters to personalize your report.

Customization options include:

• General Section: Change the accounting method, reporting period, and number format.
• Rows/Columns Section: Determine the report's rows and columns.
• Filter Section: Enter customers, distribution accounts, vendors, accounts, and products.
• Header/Footer Section: Define the header and footer content.

Saving Your Customized Reports

• After you are done making changes, click Save Customization.
• Give your report a title.
• Click the Save button.

Administering and Automating Custom Reports

View All Custom Reports:

• Go to Reports [Take me there].
• Navigate to the Custom Reports tab.
• Locate and open your desired report.
• Automate Custom Reports.

Configure automated runs: 

• Navigate to Reports [Take me there] and choose the tab for Custom Reports.
• Find your customized report and click Edit.
• Activate Set Email Schedule.
• Fill out the form, set the schedule, and save and close.

Customizing Reports for Specific Groups

• Choose Save Customization after creating a custom report.
• From the Add this report to a group dropdown, pick a group.
• Save the report to include it in the group.
• Select the Custom Reports tab, locate the group, and click Edit.
• Activate Set Email Schedule, add email addresses, complete the form, set the schedule, and Save and close.

Removing a Custom Report from a Group

• Go to Reports [Take me there] and select the Custom Reports tab.
• Identify the group, then click Edit to delete the report.
• Select Delete and Confirm.

Exporting a Custom Report in Excel or PDF Format

Sometimes, you may discover that all required columns are unavailable in a single report. You can manually add columns from other reports by exporting your QuickBooks Custom Reports to Microsoft Excel and then manually adding the columns. After running the report, click the Export icon and choose Export to Excel.

Sharing your Custom Reports

Share via email:

• Click the email icon on a report that is open.
• Select email, fill out the form, edit the message, and click Send.

Give team members access to editing:

• To save customization, select Save on an open report.
• Choose a user from the drop-down menu for sharing.
• Once ready, Save.

Customizing Reports in QuickBooks Desktop

You can easily customize any report that QuickBooks Desktop generates to suit your unique requirements. This includes adjusting the header and footer information, modifying columns by adding or removing them, and customizing the report's font and style. 

It is crucial to remember that since every report—or set of reports—draws data from the company file differently, the available columns and filters change. To guarantee accurate and insightful results, it is essential to comprehend the report's source and objectives, particularly when utilizing filters.

To customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop, follow these steps:

• Run a report.
• Click the Customize Report option in the Report window.
• Choose the tab or tabs that need updating on the Modify Report window, and then click OK when you are done.

Virtual Help for the Ultimate Customized Reports

Here are some of the most common ways virtual assistants can leverage QuickBooks Custom Reporting:

Data Entry and Organization: The assistants automate QuickBooks data entry, ensuring transaction accuracy and organization for effective custom reporting, allowing businesses to focus on strategic analysis rather than manual data entry.

Report Generation: Trained VAs help automate and schedule QuickBooks report generation, ensuring consistent and timely delivery of standard and custom reports and facilitating informed decision-making.

Customization and Formatting: Remote assistants are skilled at customizing report templates, adjusting columns, and applying formatting in QuickBooks, ensuring that reports are visually tailored to specific business needs for improved clarity and insights.

Filtering and Analysis: These assistants use QuickBooks filters to help businesses focus on particular data points or periods. This allows for deeper analysis and more timely responses to new financial trends.

Integration with Other Tools: VAs facilitate the smooth integration of QuickBooks Custom Reports with other programs and tools, creating a unified data ecosystem that improves workflow management and overall operational efficiency.

Alerts and Notifications: A VA enables quick responses to changing circumstances or detected irregularities by providing stakeholders with real-time information about crucial financial metrics through the setup of alerts and notifications.

Documentation and Record-Keeping: Online assistants keep thorough records of the report customization procedures, guaranteeing that protocols are transparently outlined, promoting long-term consistency in practices, and being well-documented.

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Key Takeaways

QuickBooks provides a sophisticated accounting automation solution for small businesses, fostering growth through its customizable standard reports and user-friendly interface. 

Businesses can easily integrate and optimize their accounting processes for increased efficiency and strategic insights by utilizing Wishup's proficient remote assistants in QuickBooks.

This is how it’s going to be once you hire a virtual assistant:

So, why wait? Contact us today via mailing us at [email protected] or a free consultation.

FAQs related to Quickbooks Custom Reports

What are the different types of reports in QuickBooks?

Numerous reports are available in QuickBooks, such as cash flow statements, balance sheets, vendor reports, profit and loss statements, and customer reports. You can customize your financial reports with custom field reports to include the precise data required to make well-informed business decisions.

How do I run a custom field report in QuickBooks?

You must first create the custom field in QuickBooks before you can run a report using it. The custom field can then be added to any report after completion. Click the "Customize" button and choose the "Rows/Columns" tab to add a custom field to a report. After selecting the custom field you wish to add by checking the box, press the "Run Report" button.