QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Sorting Reports

QuickBooks'built-in reports come sorted, but the order is rarely obvious. When you first generate a report, the Sort By box is set to Default, which means different things for different reports. For example, if you create a Sales by Customer Detail report, QuickBooks groups the transactions by customer, but it sorts the transactions for each customer from earliest to most recent. (Unlike Excel, QuickBooks sorts by only one field at a time.)

The fields you can use to sort depend on the report. For the Sales by Customer Summary report, you can sort by two columns only. The Sort By box includes Default and Total. Default sorts the report by customer name in alphabetical order. Total sorts the report by the total sales for each customer. On the other hand, the Sales By Customer Detail report includes several columns of information, and you can sort by any of them.

Figure 19-13. Top: For a detail report, the Display tab in the Modify Report dialog box includes a list of fields you can choose to include as columns in the report. If a field is preceded by a checkmark, click the field to remove it from the report. If no checkmark appears, click the field to add it. Bottom: When you create a report that makes comparisons, the Display tab on the Modify Report dialog box includes checkboxes for showing dollar and percentage comparisons. For example, if you want to focus on the ...