QuickBooks 2013: The Missing Manual

Chapter 21. Working with Reports

QuickBooks comes with loads of built-in reports that show what’s going on with your company’s finances. But a dozen report categories with several reports tucked in each category presents a few challenges, particularly if you’re new to both business and QuickBooks.

The first challenge is knowing what type of report tells you what you need to know. For example, a Profit & Loss (P&L) report tells you how much income and expense you had, but a balance sheet shows how much your company is worth.

The second challenge is finding the report you want within the different report categories. After you decide you want to compare the profit of the items you sell, do you look for the corresponding QuickBooks report in the Customers & Receivables category, Sales category, Inventory category, or “Jobs, Time & Mileage” category? (If you guessed “Jobs, Time & Mileage,” you’re right.)

The Report Center is a handy way to find the reports you want. But flipping through this book can be even faster, which is why each chapter describes the built-in reports that correspond to the bookkeeping tasks the chapter covers, what they’re good for, and where you can find them.

A third challenge—for even the most knowledgeable QuickBooks aficionado—is that the built-in reports might not do exactly what you want. A date range could be off, information that you don’t want might be included, or the data could be grouped in ways that don’t make sense for your business. After using QuickBooks ...