QuickBooks Analyzing Financial Data, Part 1

Welcome back to Educator.com.0000

This is QuickBooks lesson: discussing analyzing financial data.0003

The first thing we are going to talk about is understanding your business using Reports.0007

In many individuals, if they are sole proprietors or business owners, they have a different perception of their business.0013

But without reports and graphs, they actually may not understand the details and the true situation of their business.0019

And in fact, a lot of times, it does not match the facts.0029

You have a perception of your business that you are doing well, but you might not have all of the detailed facts.0032

And so, Reports and utilizing the reports in QuickBooks can help enlighten the situation of your business so that you can0039

actually focus on problem areas especially if your business is not doing very well, and you now it is not doing that well.0046

You can actually run Reports, find out what areas need improvement.0052

If you are selling certain products, you can actually run reports and identify those products or services that are not doing well.0059

And you can focus on improving those sales.0069

QuickBooks lets us utilize reports in various fashions.0074

It has standard reports and a lot of pre-set reports that give us the information that pull from all sources of our QuickBooks data, so it is a great help.0079

QuickBooks also gives us a quick report.0088

So, on the fly if you are in a vendors situation or if you are in your check register, you can actually run QuickReports directly on that particular vendor to0091

find out a little bit more information and get some quick information so that you can utilize that information to make management decisions more appropriately.0100

QuickBooks also has a graph function, as well.0111

So, you can take your reports and graph them in graphs or pie charts so you can see your business in that manner, as well.0113

This lesson, we are going to discuss and focus on the QuickReport's function, and we are going to be talking about creating QuickReports in QuickBooks.0122

QuickReports is the fastest way to see a report in QuickBooks, and it uses the data to create QuickBooks reports.0131

They are pre-designed reports that give us information about the items you are currently viewing.0140

And whenever we have a list or register or form this way, we can actually click on a QuickReport button to get more detailed information regarding that.0145

So, we want to talk about when to use a QuickReport.0155

Supposed we are viewing a vendor list, in the Vendor Center, and we want to see a history of all transactions regarding that particular0160

vendor to see where we are happy, we can actually select that vendor's name, click on the QuickReport link at the top right end of the window.0168

And then, we could see a report listing, the information about the bills for that vendor.0177

So, we are going to see how that works, and in my QuickBooks, I am going to go up to my Vendor Center and click on my Vendor Center icon.0183

So, now, I have my Vendor Center up, and I can look down and see.0199

Let's choose a particular vendor here. For instance, let's look at Patton Hardware Supplies.0205

So, if you have Patton Hardware Supplies, you can choose them or you could choose0211

someone else that looks like that they might have some transactions to view.0214

And in the Reports from here under the Reports section on the vendor, here, we have a vendor information that is highlighted.0220

And on the right side of that vendor information is the report for this vendor, and we can see that there is a quick link to the QuickReport.0229

So, if we click on the QuickReport, it will pull up a QuickReport for this particular vendor. It gave it to us for a particular period of time.0239

We can change that. Let's say, "Well, let me look at it from a couple of months prior", and I can change the date.0248

I can do whatever I want, but it does, kind of, give me some basic information for this vendor.0255

It gives me some of the bills that we have had. It gives me actually a receipt of items that we have purchased from them.0261

I can look at the memo.0269

If I go to the diamond bar that is in between each of these titles and labels,0271

if I go to the diamond bar just to the right of the Memo, I can make sure I have a T bar there.0277

Click on it, and move it to the right, and drag it open, and I can make the Memo field a little larger, so I can read what that memo might say.0283

And here it is. It said Received items and the bill to follow, and that was on the 5th of December, and so there it is. There is what we received.0292

We can have a lot of different things we can actually double click on.0305

And we can drill into a little bit later and see what happened with that vendor, but we will get into that a little bit next.0309

So, once, we have that open, and that is creating that QuickReport, and we can see that information,0317

now, we are going to go ahead and talk about zooming in on that QuickReport and seeing more detailed information from that report.0325

So, for instance, on that item that was received, we can drill into it and see a little bit more detail.0332

So, when we bring our cursor over that particular item, you will notice a magnifying glass with a Z in the center of it, and that stands for Zoom.0340

So, we click on it or double click on it. It will open up that actual transaction and where it came from, and this is under Item Receipt.0355

In here, we can view into the more detail of this item. We can see what we received for this bill.0366

There is no bill here just the items that we received.0373

There is the cabinet poles, the light pine kitchen, cabinet wall units, the door knobs0376

and lock and interior door knobs that we received from Patton Hardware Supplies.0383

So, we see all that. It gives us a nice detail information on that particular vendor and that particular transaction.0388

We can close that down, and that ends that QuickReport. If we go ahead and hit Save and close, it closes that down for us.0397

Next thing we want to do is we can actually customize reports and what we view on our reports.0411

Anytime we have a report up, we can customize what we see and how we view, so we are going to that in a little bit.0418

If we notice at the top portion of the window of this report, it starts with Customize report, Share template, Memorize report, Print, E-mail, Excel, Export, etc.0426

We can look at all these, and if we want to customize it and add some information to look at, we can go ahead and choose Customize report.0442

From here, we can add certain information.0451

You will notice under the Display, under Columns, you will see certain items that are checked.0454

Those are the items that we are actually viewing on this QuickReport.0460

And you can scroll down to see all the various information that you can pull.0467

The ones that we actually want to look at is maybe the transaction number.0471

So, if you click to the left of the transaction number, it will take a check mark on that, and it will add that piece of information to our QuickReport.0474

We can go ahead now and click OK. It will add transaction number to our QuickReport.0485

Now, maybe I do not want it there, and I want to move this column to be in a different space.0494

So, in order to do that, and I want to switch these things around a little bit,0502

if I position my mouse pointer just over the transaction number, you will see the little hand.0508

If I go ahead and hold down the left button of the mouse and drag this...let's do it again. Oops, it is moving.0516

If we hold down the left button...let’s try it again by getting my little hand here.0532

Hold down the left button and drag transaction number. Oops, let's try it again, the left button and drag it over.0539

And I want to put it, say, between the date and number column. There we go, left button, and it will Date and Number column it.0549

So, I can left click and drag it over. It will reposition it in my report, and that is where I can move things around.0557

If I do not like certain things, I want to put the account over a little bit further, I could put the account over somewhere else etc.0566

I can move them wherever I want on these reports, so, it gives us the idea.0573

To change information in the report header, I do not like this header.0580

Maybe, I want to print it out for someone else to view, so I can go ahead and go to Customize report, and you will see that there are some tabs.0583

There is the Display. That is where we chose to include the transaction number.0594

There is Filter. This is where we can actually filter information, but what we are going to do is change the header right now.0599

When we click on the tab that says Header Footer, we will notice that it has a lot of different options for us to include in our report.0607

We can include or remove the company name etc. or add it back in.0615

In this case, in the Report Title field, we are going to change that from Vendor QuickReport, and we are going to say Vendor History Report.0621

And we will change it to a Vendor History Report to replace the default tile of a QuickReport. If I will click on OK, it will change that.0637

Notice under Customize a report to, if I go to Fonts and Numbers, I can change my fonts. I can change the way it numbers things.0649

I can add parenthesis. Instead of a negative number, I can say I want the negative numbers to have parenthesis with a trailing minus, the minus which is behind it.0659

I can choose a lot of different options. I will keep it as normal with the minus sign in front.0672

So, that is how we can customize those reports for our QuickReport, and that is how we customize reports in our report headers.0679

Again, this is the lesson for analyzing financial data and understanding our business using QuickReports.0689

Again, thank you for visiting Educator.com. We will see you again next time.0698