How to Find a Report in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online offers you a wealth of reports so that you can stay informed about your finances at all times. Reports in QBO are organized into five categories:

• Recommended Reports
• Frequently Run Reports
• My Custom Reports
• Management Reports
• All Reports

These categories appear on the Reports page below the graphic and function as tabs; that is, you click a tab to see the reports in that category. And, if you’re an accountant using QBOA, you’ll see one more category of reports: Accountant Reports.

Examining recommended reports

QBO lists reports on the Recommended tab of the Reports page based on features you use in QBO, preferences, and add-ons.

Below, the graphic at the top of the Reports page is hidden to give the reports on the Recommended tab a bit more screen real estate. Remember, the reports displayed here might differ from the ones you see when you review recommended reports.

Looking at frequently run reports

Again, no surprise here: On the Frequently Run tab, QBO lists the reports you run most often. When you first start using QBO and haven’t run reports yet, the Frequently Run tab doesn’t contain any reports. Instead, it contains a message that describes what you’ll see after you start running reports.

Finding reports you customize

The my Custom Reports tab lists reports you have printed — whether to your display or a printer — customized, and saved, either as single reports or in a report group. Like its cousin, Frequently Run reports, the my Custom Reports tab remains empty until you print, customize, and save a report as described later in this chapter in the section “Saving a customized report.” In that section, I also show you how to place a customized report into a group, and you get a look at the my Custom Reports page after it contains a report saved to a group.

If you’re a former QuickBooks Desktop user, be aware that saving a report in QBO is the equivalent of memorizing a report in the QuickBooks Desktop product, and saving a report to a group in QBO is conceptually the same as creating a memorized report group in the QuickBooks Desktop product.

Taking a look at management reports

The Management Reports tab lists three predefined management report packages you can prepare and print by clicking the View link in the Action column.

These report packages are really quite elegant; each package contains a professional-looking cover page, a table of contents, and several reports that relate to the report package’s name:

• The Sales Performance management report contains the Profit and Loss report, the A/R Aging Detail report, and the Sales by Customer Summary report.
• The Expenses Performance management report contains the Profit and Loss report, the A/P Aging Detail report, and the Expenses by Vendor Summary report.
• The Company Overview management report contains the Profit and Loss report and the Balance Sheet report.

When you click View in the Action column beside a management report, QBO typically creates a PDF version of a management report. You can click the PDF link at the bottom of the browser or in the Print Preview window that appears to open the report in the PDF viewer you have installed on your computer.

You might be able to print the management report directly from QBO, but, if you can’t, your PDF viewer will definitely give you the option to scroll through and print the report. In the image below, the Company Overview management report has already been downloaded into a PDF viewer; you can see the cover page and, in the thumbnail section on the left, the Table of Contents and the Profit and Loss report page.

You can also customize these reports; click the downward-pointing arrow beside a report to see your choices. If you opt to edit a report package, you can add your logo to the cover page, add more reports to the package, include an executive summary, and add end notes to the package.

Exploring all QBO reports

The All Reports tab gives you a way to find any QBO report. The page lists a series of categories for reports, such as Business Overview and Manage Accounts Receivable. When you click a particular category, you see a page that lists all the reports for the selected category. Once you select a category, you can redisplay the All Reports page by clicking the All Reports link that appears above the report category name.

Searching for a report

You don’t need to use the tabs to find a report. Instead, you can click in the Go to Report box; when you do, QBO displays all reports, listed alphabetically, in a drop-down list.

If you see the report you want, you can click it, and QBO displays it onscreen. If you don’t see the report you want, you can type some keywords into the Go to Report box, and QBO narrows the reports displayed in the drop-down list to those whose name contains the keywords you typed.