How do I customize existing reports in QuickBooks Online?

February 13, 2023

Question:

How do I customize existing reports in QuickBooks Online?

Facts:

Just like in QuickBooks Desktop you can customize any pre-existing report and save it as a custom report.

Discussion:

Example One:

For this example let’s start with a standard report.

Open the Trial Balance and click on an account, for this example we are going to use the bank.

Let’s say we want to only see the cheques we wrote in a certain time range and if they have cleared the bank.

Select “Customize”

Select your date range, in this example, we are going to use April through June 2022.

You will want to select the following options:

Optional Group by: Supplier

Select Make sure you “Clr” set as a column, there is a list of options, select what is best suited for you.

Transaction Type: Select “Cheque Expense”, “Bill Payment (Cheque)” and “Paycheque” (If applicable)

Once again you can name the report by scrolling down in the customize options, or by selecting the pencil next to the name on the report itself.

Then select “Run Report”

Now let’s say you have two or more bank accounts and would like to view the cheques and their cleared status for both. Simply go to the “Distribution Account” filter and select “All Bank Accounts” or scroll down further to select just the accounts you want.

Example 2:

For our final QuickBooks Online Example, we will use the following situation to show you how these reports can be used and show you some different ways to customize your reports. You can always customize any report at any point, and can also do so without clicking the “Customize“ button.

Situation: You are reviewing your quarterly income statement and notice the office supplies seem higher than usual.

A quick and useful customization is to use the “Group by” this can quickly turn your Profit and Loss report for the quarter into a by-month report. In this situation, this helps you narrow done which month the higher expense is in, or if it’s a new trend (for example a regular monthly bill of $100 increased to $120)

Now that your profit and loss are broken down by month you can see that May is higher than April and June. Select the office supplies for May to open the detail for that month. This may be enough to find what’s making your expense higher, however, for the purpose of this example we are going to say you have lots of entries in this account.

Select the “Group by” option again and select “Supplier” now you can see you have 5 Paper Co. invoices instead of the usual 4 and found a duplicate entry to correct.

Recommendation:

If you would like assistance customizing existing reports in QuickBooks Online, please do not hesitate to give us a call. To learn how to run custom reports in QuickBooks Online, check out part 1 of this series here.