QuickBooks Analyzing Financial Data: Create & Customize Preset Reports

Welcome back to Educator.com.0000

This is QuickBooks lesson: analyzing financial data, how to create and customize pre-set reports.0002

Now, in addition to QuickReports from the previous lesson, QuickBooks has dozens of pre-set reports formats0009

that we can create Profit and Loss Reports, Balance Sheet Reports, Accounts Receivable Reports, Sales Reports,0018

Accounts Payable Reports, Inventory Reports and many other reports that are standard with QuickBooks.0026

So, we are going to talk about creating and customizing pre-set reports to begin with.0033

And just to let you know, in QuickBooks, we have a variety of pre-set reports.0038

Now, to get to the Report Center, from the Menu button in QuickBooks, if we look at Reports, there is a Report Center.0044

So, we can look at that, or we can actually look at the various categories that are there within QuickBooks.0052

There is Company and Financial that is going to give us profit and loss, Balance Sheet Reports that are very vital to our business.0058

Again, garbage in, garbage out.0065

So, if we do not put all the data in, we are not going to get a clear picture of our business.0070

So, it is vital that you put every bank transaction, every credit card transaction that is related to your business into QuickBooks0075

and categorize them properly in according to expense or whatever category that transaction has- sales reports, discounts that we give.0083

Make sure that you do that especially if you are going to discount an item that you are selling or a service that you are selling.0095

Make sure that the proper value is reported on the invoice and then, if there is a discount given so that you can track those.0099

And you see where your profitability is.0107

There is Customer and Receivable Reports. There is Sales Reports.0110

There is Jobs, Time and Mileage Reports, so we can keep track of our job costing.0115

That is a vital thing if you are a construction company or a manufacturer to see what those job are actually costing you.0121

Many customers of mine have seen that they thought they are a little more profitable than usual.0128

And then, when they actually go into every associated cost to that particular job, they are realizing0135

that they are actually not charging enough for that job, and they are actually losing money.0140

So, make sure that you attribute every cost, every expense to that job, so you can do job costing a little more accurate.0146

There is Vendors and Payables, so we can look at our Vendors, how much money we are spending with our0155

vendors, our suppliers, and what our payables, and the amount of money we owe to our vendors.0159

Purchases, so we can see what we are purchasing for our item, for our resell.0166

What is our amount? Maybe we are spending a lot of money with one particular vendor on items.0171

It might prove to our benefit to maybe renegotiate term so we might be able to get a lower0176

price on those items that we are reselling since we are being such a great customer to them.0182

There is Inventory Reports, vital to a business that is dealing with inventory.0186

There is an Inventory Control so we can go through those reports, and it will help us manage it a little better.0192

And we can keep our cost down and actually eliminate loss.0198

There is Employee and Payroll. If we are on Payroll, we can actually have a variety of payroll reports that will help us0202

understanding what our employees are doing especially if we are dealing with job costing and the time and efforts that0208

our employees are spending per job, so we can do time and billing for our customers, too on our job costing.0216

Banking Reports, Account and taxes, there is Budget and Forecasting lists for the items and services and products and services that we are providing.0223

We can look at all of those. We can look at our Industry-Specific if we are contractor or if we are manufacturer.0231

There is some Industry-Specific Reports that come standard with QuickBooks if we opted on those industry versions of QuickBooks.0239

So, then, there is Contributor Reports if you are using a premier or a higher version.0247

There is Contributor Reports where some other QuickBooks user have customized certain reports that might be beneficial to you.0252

If it is beneficial to them, to making their business successful, we might be able to look into their reports,0260

what they have done and how we can improve our business in the same way.0265

So, those are the variety of reports that we have that help us manage our business a little more accurately.0269

The next thing we are going to discuss now is using the Report Center in QuickBooks.0277

So, Report Center has a variety of ways to get to those pre-set reports.0282

Like I said, there is the Quick menu option here from the Report area.0286

Or we can just choose the Report Center, which is a more visual aid in looking at those reports.0291

So, when we pull up the Report Center, it is a good way to kind of see and visualize what those reports might look like.0297

Now, of course, my version gives me an option to say "Hey, there is new Contributor Reports explore now option.0304

I am going to close that down. You may not have that function there.0311

So, here in the Report Center, we have the categories of standard reports that are available to us, Purchases, Inventory Reports, etc. on our left side.0314

We, are, then, going to look to the right upper hand portion of how we are going to look at those reports.0324

So, If I look over here and look at the grid view...this is the grid view of each report.0332

It gives us, kind of, a visual summary of what that report might look like in the format in which it is.0336

And we can scroll down and see the various reports there, Incoming and Expense Reports.0344

We can look at the Balance Sheet Net Worth, and we can see these different type of reports here, OK?0349

There is some Graph Reports, different things that we can look at, a Cash Flow Report, and that is the grid view of the Report Center.0354

If we go back to the top and go to the Lists view. It will give us a list of the reports and what those standards are.0363

So, we can look at the Lists view, as well.0373

That is helpful if you know exactly which you are looking for, or you can go to the carousel view, and it is more of a visual aid this way.0375

And you can look at each report by clicking on the right end, or you can even use your arrow key on the keyboard to move through the various reports.0385

And it gives you, kind of, a visual of what those reports might look like in the carousel view.0395

So, I want to go back to the grid view, and if I want to go down to look at these views here, I can click on the Contributor Reports on the right.0400

As we discussed, those are the reports that other QuickBooks users have uploaded for our benefit in Industry-Specific.0414

So, here we are, we are in general product based business, and these are some of the customized reports0425

that other QuickBooks users have contributed, so we can look at those, and there is some examples there.0432

There is a Profit and Loss by month. We can look at that, and there is various reports there.0438

So, that, kind of, gives us an idea, an overview on the Report Center, on how to navigate through that Report Center.0443

Now, I am going to go ahead and discuss creating the Balance Sheet Comparison Report.0450

We are going to talk about looking at a specific pre-set report in the balance sheet.0453

So, with that, we are going to understand, or if we click on Standard Reports back to the QuickBooks standard pre-set reports,0459

we can scroll down to the balance sheet area, and there is the balance sheet.0468

and we can look at the Balance Sheet Reports and scroll down to the Balance Sheet Previous Year Comparison Report.0476

And when we click on that, it will pull up...we can highlight it, and we can run it by clicking on the green Run button.0483

It will pull up that particular report for us. I am going to go ahead and close down my Report Center from behind.0491

Since I have that report that I want, I am going to close that Report Center down just so0498

we can see the Balance Sheet Previous Year Comparison Report without any further distraction.0501

So, when we look at that, we can go ahead and see the various balance sheets comparing0507

from 2015 to the current year, 2016, assuming that is the year in which we are working.0513

Now, we have a variety of things. For instance, we have detail, for instance, on our liabilities and other current liabilities.0521

We have our payroll liabilities, and there is a detail accounting of those liabilities.0527

Federal withholding, FICA payable, the Federal Employment Payable, the State Withholding and etc., that the employer is0534

withheld from the payroll of each employee, and those need to go to the various state agencies, our IRS agencies, as well,0542

and, of course, health insurance to the insurance premium that we are providing.0550

And so, with that, if we notice up in the menu button bar of that report, there is a Collapse. This is detailed view.0555

If I click on Collapse, it will go ahead and summarize the sum total of the payroll liabilities.0563

If we go ahead and expand it, it will give us more of a detailed view.0571

So, we can collapse it, print that out, so it is more of a collapse view or less detailed.0576

Or we are going to expand it again, and then, we can look at the report on that direction.0582

So, keeping that display open, now, we can look at the Balance Sheet Report, and we can maybe learn how to filter and do a little bit of filtering.0587

Maybe there is a use on the balance sheet, but we do not want to show the liabilities or the equity accounts on this particular report when0595

we are just going to discuss and analyze our assets, and maybe we want to show that for an analysis review of management or whatever.0604

So, we have a use for that, and we want to filter only the asset accounts in this exercise.0612

So, the Customize this report, that is what we have already opened.0618

Up in the upper left button of the menu button, you might have something that is called Customize Report or Modify Report.0621

Mine says Customize Report. Your version might say Modify Report, but it is the same functionality.0629

So, click on that button that says Modify or Customize report, and that is going to bring up the Modify Report window.0634

We have a variety of options that we can choose on this report, but what we want to do is filter it.0642

We are going to filter only the asset accounts. That is what we want to do.0647

So, we are going to choose the Filter tab, and under the Filter section, we want to make sure the account is highlighted.0650

And then, in the middle section where it says Account, we are going to drop down our Option menu.0659

And you will see that we have a variety of filters that we can choose.0664

We can literally just choose one account and look at that one particular account we like, but in this case, we are going to filter it by All Assets.0670

So, we will choose All Assets there.0678

By choosing All Assets, of course, we are going to be eliminating the liability and the equity accounts in this report.0681

So, at this point, we like what we have, and our filter, we will choose OK.0690

And it is going to refresh that report so that when we scroll down, we are not going to see any liability or equities.0695

What we will see are only the asset accounts.0703

We can still collapse it on a view and look at more of a summary view there, or we can expand it and look at the detail of each items there.0705

So, that is how we can filter our reports.0715

Notice that some of the filters that we are reporting, we can do more than one thing, and it depends what we want to do.0721

For instance, if we look at those filters again, just get an idea of what you actually can do if you filter out an item,0727

and you choose to filter items, you can actually filter the products and services that we offer our customers.0738

So, you can look at certain order sales or purchase orders or sales forms. It is going to pull out just those line items from sales forms or invoices.0745

If we filter through Name, it is going to give us an option of filtering by customer, or we can filter by vendor only or by the employee or other name lists.0758

So, we can actually filter a particular customer or a group of customers or whichever we want.0772

But, that is going to give us an idea how we can filter out just vendors or employees or that, sort of, thing for our reports.0778

If we choose Transaction Type to filter, that is going to help us filter any transaction including invoices,0786

cash sales, statement charges, customer payments, bank deposits, purchase orders or item receipts,0793

bills, bill payments, credit card charges, checks, pay checks and general entries.0801

So, we can filter all these different types of transactions- invoices, payments, etc. So, we can filter every check payable personally.0807

We can look at all bank accounts and every check written or all deposits written or whichever.0817

We can filter that and see directly what we want by transaction.0823

So, that, kind of, helps us a little bit understanding what we can use those filters for and what those filters can be used for.0828

So, at this point, we are going to now talk about saving reports.0835

Once we have a report, we want to save it as a portable document format, a PDF, and that is very helpful.0838

So, when we do a period of reporting, we might want to take a snapshot of that.0847

And we can actually save it as a PDF, e-mail it to management or other concerned parties in our business, so we are going to learn how to do that.0851

So, we are going to go ahead and with this report still open,0859

we are going to choose up here under the File menu with the report open, we can say Save as PDF.0864

Under the File menu, when we choose Save as PDF, it is going to pull it up and gives an option of where to save that file.0878

So, at this point in time, we can go ahead and type in whatever we want to call it, Balance Sheet, Assets, etc., and we can name that file.0885

At this point, I am not going to go ahead and save it, but you can see where you can save it in any directory.0895

You can choose on your desktop or a business file that you have on your computer.0901

Normally, I would hit Save at this point, but at this point, I will not save that.0906

But, that is how we can save that as a PDF file, and QuickBooks will automatically save it as a PDF, so that is what we can do there.0909

From this point, I am going to go up to Window and close all my windows so we can go on to our next section of our lesson.0917

And we are going to talk about creating and customizing a sales report.0924

Now, sales reports is vital to our business, of course. It is the lifeblood- sales.0928

So, there is a variety of reasons and reports that we want to look at our sales to see where we need improvement in our business.0933

So, to create a sales report, again, I am going to use the Menu button.0941

Instead of going to the Report Center, I am just going to go straight to the Sales area under the Reports menu.0947

And from here, I am going to choose Sales by Customer Summary, so I am going to choose Sales by Customer Summary in the submenu.0953

It is going to pull up a report of the sales by customer.0962

So, here I can see all the different sales that we have had for a given period of time in our date section.0967

Now, this is a month-to-date period from December, and assuming that today is the 15th of December, 2016, it is giving me, kind of, a month-to-date default.0974

So, let’s say we want to go ahead and change that date and customize the date.0987

So, under the Date option where it says this month-to-date, we are going to drop down that menu, and we can actually choose a custom date.0992

So, go to the very bottom of those options and choose Custom, and if we hit tab, it goes into the first date field.1002

And at this point, I can say January 1st of 2016, let's say, and then, I want to do January 31st, 2017, OK?1010

So, if I type in January 31st, 17. It will give me a full year. Actually, I am going to...yes, so it gives me, kind of, an idea there.1028

Let me just do the one month for the 16th of January 2016. We will go back to that direction, just the one month.1040

So, January 1st, 2016 through January 31st, 2016, so it goes back a little bit.1048

We are going to see all these sales by customer in that given period of time.1055

And so, that gives us an idea of what that is and how we can create the customized sales report.1064

Now, we are going to actually talk about using QuickZoom in a pre-set report. What is QuickZoom?1068

QuickZoom is what some people might call drilling down from a report to get further detail on a report.1074

So, we look at this. When we are looking at any given report, when we highlight a figure in this report, you will notice the icon or the pointer.1081

Your mouse pointer changes to a magnifying glass with a Z, which stands for Zoom.1094

So, if we highlight and position the mouse pointer over, let's say, the first item that says 1999, or in my case, it is Mike Valic for a utility shed of $1999.1099

You can choose anything in your report if it is different from mine.1116

If we double click, when we have the magnifying glass with the Z on it, we double click on that.1120

It is going to pull up the Sales by Customer detail for that, that consists of the 1999 invoice, so we are going to see that this is one invoice.1125

It looks like it is invoice no. 1022, and it gives us further detail of that particular report, and we can see that. It pulls up more detail of that.1134

If we look at this on the detail, we can see certain invoices, and let's look at the detail of this particular invoice.1149

So, I can click on the 799, the bottom, and it will pull up the detail of that actual invoice.1159

It just shows that...it just so happens that, that particular customer only has one invoice for that particular month, but it pulls up the invoice.1168

You will notice that QuickBooks stamps in a Paid and when it was paid on that particular invoice, so that helps us.1176

We can look at the detail of this invoice and what it consists of and how we invoice them and when we did that.1184

At this point, we can go ahead and close all our window, so I go up the window and close all for that.1189

Just understand that in Reports, you can actually widen or narrow the columns in Reports.1198

If we pull it back up again, go to the Sales Report and say Sales by Customer Summary or actually1207

Sales by Customer Summary report, when we look at that, we can widen or narrow those items.1212

So, If I wanted to widen this, I can put my mouse pointer just over those diamonds where it gives me, kind of, a cross arrows.1220

And if I click on it with the left mouse button and drag it, it will make that column a lot larger.1228

So, I am happy with the size of that, so we will make it smaller there.1234

That is just a few items that you can customize those things with your Reports.1239

Now, we are actually going to learn how to save report settings and create memorized reports in groups.1246

Once we like the particular customized reports that we created, we can actually memorize those in groups and assign those.1255

For instance, we might have some year-end reports or month-end reports whatever that we want to run every year.1263

Maybe our accountant says "Hey, I need to see a 1099 report, and I need to see some year-to-date figure reports".1270

So, we can actually create a group in our Report section that says "Hey, this is what my1277

year-end report should look like, and this is what my accountant usually wants me to see".1283

So, we can actually create memorized reports and save those for future reference.1287

And then, we do not have to recreate the wheel or reinvent the wheel there.1294

So under our Reports menu, we will notice there is a second item down. It says Memorized Report section.1298

So, under here, we can look at the Memorized Report list, and we will see a listing of all our memorize reports.1304

There are some standard ones that comes with QuickBooks under Accountant and Banking, Customers and etc.1311

And we want to go ahead and create one.1317

So, what we are going to do in the Memorized Report list, we are going to look at the Memorized Report button and choose a new group.1320

So, we want to create a new group, let's say, called Year-end. OK, that is fair enough.1328

A lot of times, we need year-end reports especially for accountants or CPAs.1333

Under the Memorized Report list, down at the bottom, we have our Memorized Report menu option.1338

We are going to click on the arrow, and from there, we are going to choose New Group.1344

Under the New Group Name, we are going to type Year-end. Once we have that typed, we can click OK, and it creates a new group called Year-end.1349

So, now, we went ahead and created a new memorized report group.1358

Now, we can start adding reports to that, and we can memorize pre-set reports for it.1364

So, from this point on, now, that we have our new group called Year-end highlighted in there,1370

we are going to go ahead and create a new one that says Income Tax Summary.1377

So, we are going to go ahead and run a report and memorize that, and we are going to memorize this particular report.1383

One of those things is going to be the report Income Tax Summary.1389

So, when we are going to click on Reports under the top menu button, and we are going to go down to accountant and taxes.1393

And down here at the very bottom, second to the last, we are going to see an Income Tax Summary report.1401

So, we will click on that, and it will run this report and gives us an Income Tax Summary report1406

that might be very helpful to our accountant who is going to run our taxes for us.1412

So, we notice that it is running a particular year for the full year, January 1st through the 31st of that year of December.1417

So, there, now, we have the report, we want to memorize this report.1427

The next section we are going to do now is we are going to go up to the menu Report bar.1430

And you will notice, there is a button up here that says Memorize.1436

So, click on the memorize, so it is going to remember this report.1439

And at this point, we want to leave the name as is, but we are going to save it and click on the option that says Save and memorize report group.1443

So, we are going to check that. Notice, we can assign it to any group we want.1454

At this point, we want the top one that says Year-end.1458

Click OK, and you will notice that it just added under Report Year-end. Out of the Memorized Report, it added Income Tax Summary Report.1462

So, that, kind of, helps us there.1472

I am going to go ahead and close this particular report, and now, we can learn how to add reports to those memorized groups.1474

So, once we have a particular group created - Year-end Report group - we want to add some reports to it.1484

For instance, we already have a 1099 Summary report. If you do not have a 1099 Summary report in your listing, I will show you how to add that.1493

You go up to the Vendor menu. We want to run the 1099 summary report.1503

So, we will go down and say Print or /efile 1099, and we can find the 1099 Summary Report there.1508

We will click on that, so it will run the report for us.1518

It is giving us the same full year in which we are supposedly working in 2015, and from here, we will go ahead and memorize that.1521

This has already been memorized, but if you memorize it, you can just save it and then, click OK, and it is already memorized for me.1530

So, that just gives you an idea on how you can run your 1099 Summary report. Mine is already on the listing.1540

And to move it, if I want to edit that Memorized Report, I can choose the Memorized Report, and I can say edit this, and I can save it in a particular group.1546

And if I click on the check mark that says Save and memorize report group and assign it to Year-end, it will move it.1559

Or the other way, I can move the diamond underneath the Year-end. I should be able to move that.1567

And if I left click on the diamond, when I highlight the mouse pointer over that diamond next to the left 1099 Summary, so I get a little cross arrows.1576

If I left click that and drag my mouse to the right just under Income Tax and under Year-end, it will assign it to the Year-end Memorized Report group.1589

And so now, we have that 1099 and Income Tax Summary under Year-end Reports.1601

We can go ahead and add another one so you get a little help there.1607

Let's run another report we want for Year-end. Maybe, we want Balance Sheet Year-end.1612

We want to see what our year-end balance sheet is, so under the Memorized Report list, see if we have it here.1617

I do not see a Balance Sheet Year-end, do you? I do not see it, so I am going to run that report.1625

If you have a Balance Sheet Year-end report, you can choose it and drag it up to the Year-end section, or you can click on memorized report and edit it.1631

At this point, I am going to run the Balance Sheet Year-end Report by clicking on Reports, go to Company and Financial1639

and go down to the Balance Sheet Report, and I will run the balance sheet standard report.1649

And I will make sure that it is year-end, so I will choose the date.1657

Once I have the report up, and I change it to 12-31-2016 for this year...1661

Actually, I am going to choose it for this 15th because I think everything else is for the 15th.1670

So, I can change the date to be year-end for the current year, and then, I will click on Memorize that report.1675

And I am going to save it under Year-end. It will add that.1683

Now, I have it saved. I want to save the name, so I am going to change that.1686

Now, it says saved. Well, I wanted to save Balance Sheet Year-end, so I am going to highlight that report,1689

go down to Memorized Report, edit Memorized Report, and I can change the name to Balance Sheet Year-end Report.1696

Click OK, and now, I have that, so I can run my reports by double clicking anything. It gives me the year.1706

And I have the consistent year for all those reports under the Year-end Report section, OK?1713

So, that is how we can add those reports to Memorized Report groups. It gives us the idea on how we can display those.1723

Anytime we want to display a report, we can highlight it. We can go down to Memorized Report.1731

And we can edit it or we can double click on it in which it will display that report for us anytime we like.1737

Or if we even highlight it once, we can just click on the Display at the menu button down below. It will display the report.1746

That is the end of this lesson on how to create and customize pre-set reports in QuickBooks.1755

Thanks again for joining us here at Educator.com. We will see you next time.1761