Basic reports
Learning outcomes
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to:
1. Recognize how to navigate the Reports Center and run basic reports
2. Recognize the difference between cash-basis and accrual-basis reporting
Topics
The benefits of reporting
The Reports Center
Reports and subscription levels
Basic reports
The story so far
As you saw in the introduction modules, QuickBooks Online has powerful reporting
functionality that can help you and your clients save time and be more efficient.
You can customize reports to include the information important to your clients, allowing
them to monitor just how well their business is performing.
How can QuickBooks Online help?
Reports give your clients a full set of analytics on how well they’re doing. They also help
to identify where they could make improvements to grow and be more profitable.
This lesson helps you refresh the skills and knowledge you gained in the introduction
modules. We will also take a look at how you can build on your knowledge throughout
the rest of the course.
The benefits of creating reports
The benefits of creating reports
Your clients need to have a clear snapshot of how they are doing. QuickBooks Online
reports provide valuable insights into:
The financial position of a business
The results of operations for a specific time period
Statistical information such as the best-selling item or gross profit margin
Information about customers, vendors, and employees
But first we need a quick recap of a key concept that clients need to know: the
difference between cash and accrual reporting.
Cash-basis reports
These reports display income at the time it was received and expenses at the time they
were paid. This is great when your clients need a quick overview of their cash flow.
Accrual-basis reports
These reports display income at the time it was invoiced and expenses at the time they
were purchased, regardless of when payment occurred. This is appropriate when your
clients want to view income earned and expenses incurred.
The Reports Center
Let's look through the Reports Center, tab by tab.
Watch the video to see how it’s done. The individual steps are below for you to follow.
Navigating the Reports Center
The reporting categories are listed by business purpose, and within each of these is the
related report.
Let’s run through this together and you can have a look at all the different reporting
options—because there are lots!
Select the Reports link in the Left Navigation Bar
The Reports Center is divided into three tabs, but most of what you need is in
the Standard tab. This shows the most common reports business owners will want to
run.
Favorites
This section will remember the reports that are run most often. So it will show that you
looked at Business Snapshot. It will allow you to quickly access regular reports.
Business overview
This displays income and expenses in year-over-year comparisons, often using pie
charts and bar graphs. It also shows a snapshot of who is owed money, and who owes
money to the business.
Then you’ll see reports grouped by Sales categories and Expense
categories and a section for Employee information.
For My Accountant
There are lots of reports that you can run here, from Account Lists to Transaction
List by Date. Many of them are available to your clients from other Report tabs, but
those reports most common to accountants are grouped here for quick access.
The Custom Reports tab
Any reports run with customizations will show here, providing that you have saved them!
The Management Reports tab
Here, reports are grouped into professional-styled report packages and are
downloadable, with options to add professional elements such as a cover page, table of
contents, and custom letters, as well as the reports. Have a look at the Sales
Performance package. These reports can be presented to clients and vendors or
financial institutions as a professionally packaged summary of a client’s business.
You can customize the heading and content of the reports to suit you and your client’s
needs.
Spend a little while going through some of the reports. Need to set up a customized
report to suit a specific need Craig has identified? You can do that here.
To customize and save a report, first run a report, and then select
the Customize button at the top right-hand side to access your options.
Reports and subscription levels
The range of reports available to your clients or their team members depends on their
subscription levels, user roles, and features they or you have enabled.
There are many to view, so we’ve put together a downloadable guide for your
reference.
To get you started, here’s an overview of which reports are available in each
subscription type.
Select the tabs/steps in turn.
QuickBooks Online Simple Start
This option allows for basic data entry. You can track money in and money out, as well as
manage customer-tracking and invoicing.
QuickBooks Online Essentials
More features, therefore more reports. You can run vendor and product reports to track your
accounts payable balances and gain more insight into the company’s financial results.
QuickBooks Online Plus
This option opens all the features of QuickBooks Online. It offers more comparison
reports for company financials. Unlike Essentials, you can run reports relating to
location and class, purchasing and inventory, time activities, and more.
Select the Report Differences by Subscription Level link for your copy of the
reporting levels.
ProAdvisor tip
You can see reports included in each QuickBooks Online subscription
at quickbooks.intuit.com.
QuickBooks Online Advanced offers the same reporting functionality
as QuickBooks Online Plus, but with the addition of smart reporting
with Fathom.
Basic reports
To see the different types of reports in more detail, select the tabs
in turn.
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
Accounts Receivable (or A/R) reports in QuickBooks Online allow you or your clients to
see who owes the business money and how much they owe.
Reports include Customer Balance Summary and Detail, A/R Aging Summary and
Detail, Collections Report, Invoice List, and Statement List.
Managing the amount of money owed to a business can be hard. Using A/R reports
helps Craig manage his cash flow more efficiently by making the details of open
customer balances visible.
What is an A/R Aging Summary report?
The A/R Aging Summary report lists each customer with an open balance. It lists the
open invoices in different columns based on whether they are current or how long they
are overdue: 30, 60, or 90+ days.
By running this report, you and Craig can see who owes money and their payment
terms.
Accounts Payable (or A/P) reports in QuickBooks Online allow you and your clients to
see what the business owes and when payments are due.
Reports include A/P Aging Summary and Detail, Vendor Balance Summary and Detail,
Bill Payment List, and Unpaid Bills.
For your clients, managing cash going out of the business is crucial. They can gain
insight into which vendors to pay and when by using these reports and, as a result,
manage their cash flow.
The A/P Aging Summary
This report summarizes the status of unpaid bills and unapplied Vendor Credits. It
serves as a quick glance at which vendors are most overdue.
Why would you run one of these reports? You can use the A/P Aging Summary to help
Craig understand how to pay vendors strategically, instead of just paying the first ones
he thinks of or those he likes best!
For example, if Craig has a vendor who is making finance charges, you can encourage
him to pay that vendor first rather than a bill that is still within payment terms. That way,
Craig can maintain his pool of available cash and not run short when he needs to buy
supplies essential for completing current work.
The Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet are two other essential reports that help Craig
assess his financial performance. Profit and Loss is also referred to as the Income
Statement.
An Income Statement summarizes the amount of financial activity associated with each
income or expense account for a specific period of time, so the business can assess
whether it is operating at a profit or a loss.
To run a Profit and Loss Report
If you were looking at Craig’s Landscaping and Design business account, you would
navigate to the Reports Center and find the report under Business Overview.
On the Profit and Loss Report screen, there are options to customize the report to suit
your client. Within the report period, you can change the display of columns and
compare with another period.
You’ll find an example under the Tools section, where you can download copies of
these reports.
To run the Balance Sheet report:
From the Reports Center, under Business Overview, you’ll see Balance
Sheet.
The reporting period for an Income Statement differs from that of a Balance Sheet. A
Balance Sheet summarizes the financial position of a business at a single moment in
time; that is why it’s commonly referred to as a snapshot of the business. This report
reflects whether the assets that the business owns are enough to offset its liabilities and
leave a net equity balance after all liabilities have been paid off.
As above, you have options to sort and filter this report to suit your client’s needs.
You can download and view this report in the Tools section.
