QuickBooks Online 2021 report formatting basics part two, let’s get into it with Intuit QuickBooks Online 2021. Here we are in our free QuickBooks Online test drive file, which you could find by searching in your favorite browser for QuickBooks Online test drive, or in Craig’s design and landscaping services practice file, we’re going to be opening up the balance sheet to look at some more formatting of the balance sheet, most of which can be applied to other reports as well. Going down to the reports.
00:30
Down below, we’re looking at the balance sheet, which should be in our favorite reports, it’s one of all of our favorite reports, we’re going to then duplicate the tab up top, I want to open the income statement and the trial balance as well just to observe them as we go through this, right clicking on the tab up top, duplicating that tab. I’m going to do it two more times. So we can have two more reports. So I’m going to right click again, duplicate the tab. So this is gonna be the first tab then is going to be where I go. If there’s any other things we want to do to take a look at this tab is going to be the balance sheet, this tab is going to be the profit and loss. And I’ll open one more for the trial balance.
01:07
So these are the main three reports, I would have either these two open, and or the trial balance open whenever doing data input just to kind of see what is going on as we go. So this one’s going to be the trial balance, I’m on the far right tab, I’m going to make this into the trial balance. It’s under the accounting section down below. But I’m just going to type it in here trial balance, trial balance, just like that. And so there it is, there’s our trial balance, and then I’m going to change the dates up top to 2020. So I’m going to say a 101 to zero to 1231 to zero, then we’re going to run that report. There it is, let’s close the hamburger for it makes me hungry.
01:48
And then we’re going to go to the second tab. And this is going to be the profit and loss tab. Let’s Let’s go down to the reports down below, we gotta change it because right now it’s the balance sheet, we’re going to go to the reports, it’s going to be the P and L the profit and loss the income statement changing the dates up top from a 101 to zero to 1231 to zero, well 31 to zero, we’re going to go ahead and run that report. There’s our PnL profit loss income statement closing the hamburger. And then we’re going to go to the balance sheet where our main focus will be changing the dates up top from 101, to zero to 1231 to zero there as well. Let’s go ahead and run that one.
02:31
So we’re going to continue on with our formatting. If we scroll up, we saw the ribbon last time we went through basically everything on the ribbon, and then we went through basically these items up top. Now we’re going to go into the Customize button here. Note that some of these will be duplicates to what we have down here in the ribbon. So we’ll point that out. And then there’ll be of course, some new items here as well. So these are grouped. In the general we’ve got the rows and columns, filters, and headers and footers.
02:57
Within the general sections, we’re gonna open up the general section, we have this similar kind of process we saw before in terms of, in essence, the same process for the report period. So same items we saw here, so I won’t go over that in detail, we got the cash versus accrual, that was also on the ribbon. So we don’t need to take a look at that, again, here’s the new stuff. Here’s the new stuff, we got the number formatting. So this one says divide by 1000. So that means that you can you can format your report to take off basically three or three zeros on the report. So if you hit that one, then you’re gonna say run that report, it’s gonna divide by 1000. So that’ll it’ll be easier to read.
03:38
So if you have large numbers in your reports, or even if you just would like to cut down the numbers, you can hit that one note that it’s still put the pennies involved here, the cents, which doesn’t really make sense if you’re going to be rounding by 1000. So what you want to do there, if you’re going to do that is go to Customize reports. And also you want to remove the sense remove the sense now that the report doesn’t make sense. But you move in the pennies, the sense the sense. So then we’re gonna say run that report. So there we have it. So we’re dividend divided by 1000. wouldn’t make much sense with this report.
04:08
But again, if you have some larger numbers, that might make it easier to look at. Going back up to the Customize report, we’re going to remove that division, we’re going to put the pennies back. We also have options for negative numbers here. So you could put the negative number represented with just a negative sign. You could also put brackets around it, I kind of liked the brackets, I think they’re easier to see, if you’re in a location that likes to have the negative after the number then you could put that there as well. I’d kind of like the brackets here.
04:35
And then you can show them as red if you so choose as well. So any negative number will show as red. If I say run that report, I’m not sure we have any negative numbers, we should have accumulated depreciation there we do a couple negative numbers that are really standing out boldly there as they should since the equity is negative, which is kind of troubling kind of word, little word but that’s okay. We’re going to go back up top and go back into the Customize. That’s going to be the general items.
05:00
Let’s close that tab. Let’s go to the row and column items. So row and column items, these are the same activities we saw down below here, we have that here and here. So I won’t go through those. Again, if you want questions on those, you can take a look at the prior presentation. If we expand this item, here, we have these two, these we saw in the prior presentation, those are also on the ribbon. So you can take a look at those in a prior presentation, I’m going to close this back up, close this back up, let’s go on down to the filters, the filters, and the filters may not be as applicable here on the balance sheet. But you’ll see how they work.
05:34
And then what when we go to other types of reports will start to use these filters, they can be very useful depending on the report that we are looking at. So our filter options here, customers, vendors, product and services, if we select the drop down, we have all or we can select some of these items. So we can kind of select some of our customers, for example. And then I’m going to say run that report. And then we have an adjustment up top, I believe you saw a change to the checking account and probably the receivables. If I go into the receivables, that I’m drilling down on it, this is basically a transaction detail report where that kind of filter makes a little bit more sense.
06:10
So now you can see, obviously, if I was to look at these customers, these are the customer names. If I go back up top, and I go back to all with my filters, go into the filter, and we’re going to go to the customers will say all this time and run that report, then we should pick up, all the customers will have a longer report here. Once again, if I filter it, if I use my filter by customizing. And I say I want to I want to filter it down here to customers, let’s say just to choose one cool cars. That’s, that’s a cool one to choose. And there we have it. Okay, so then if I go back to the balance sheet, and we’re going to go back up top and say customize, and then I go back to my filters. And let’s say that we’re gonna say all here back to the default of all.
07:00
And then if I did the same for the vendors, let’s say we chose like one vendor, there’s our famous Bob’s burger vendor that we selected, like 100 times, let’s pick that one. And then I’ll uncheck this one altogether. So vendors is now selected. If I say Okay, so then we can go down, you would suspect that you know, up here and the accounts payable would then be affected, there’s nothing there, there’s a big change happened with that filter. So let’s go back up top and then customize. And I’m going to go back to the the vendors. And let’s say we picked a couple vendors here. And say run that report. Now again, you probably wouldn’t do this on the face of the balance sheet.
07:38
But once you’re in once you’re in like the accounts payable report, then you can see how these filters will become useful. We see these these filtering options that are showing these filters. If I then let’s go to California telephone. Let’s filter on that one California telephone. So I’m going to say filter. And we’ll say California telephone is the only one we’ll put on there. And then say run that report just to see how it specifies down. Now obviously, you’ll have different filtering options for different reports.
08:10
Now I’m in the transaction report when I drill down on the balance sheet, and we’ve got if I go down to the filters, we got the transaction type, account name, customer employees, or there’s a whole lot of things that we can adjust this type of report for, because you could filter by basically every field, let’s go back to customize and take the filter off. So I’m going to unfilter unfilter. And then I’m going to run that report. And you can see now you’ve got the date, you got the transaction, you got the number you’ve got names, which are vendors, memos, accounts, the split account, whatnot. So there’s a whole lot of stuff that you could basically use to use your filters on this particular report.
08:49
So customizing back down to the filters vendor transaction. So when we look at the transactions, we’ve got the credit card, check invoice. So that’s the transaction type that we can have. We’ve got the district distribution account, we have the account that we can be selecting. So all accounts name, customer employee product service. So this can be very useful when you get into these kind of detailed type of reports. So I’m going to go then back to the balance sheet. And then I’m going to scroll back up top customized reports, I’m going to remove the filter.
09:23
So I’m going to go back up top and say let’s take that filter off, run the report again. So we’re back to our standard balance sheet. And then we’ll customize one more time or at least one more time here. And we’re going to go down to then I’m going to unfilter this, we’re going to go down to the headers and footers. So headers and footers, the company name, if you wanted to change the company name you could do so here if you want to change the report title, and this may seem like something like you wouldn’t want to do all the time change the report title.
09:52
But if you alter the report, meaning you start with a balance sheet report and then you do like a comparative report, you compare one period to another month to month, week to week or something like that, then then you might want to change the name of the balance sheet to represent that it’s a comparative balance sheet, or a custom balance sheet in some way, shape or form. So then you can have the report period, which you could basically remove. So if I select that and say run that report, the report period, which was right there has disappeared. Now, it would be nice, it’d be kind of nice if you could edit the report period, instead of just simply deleting it or putting it back in place. Because like I say, if you make a comparative report, then you might want to change the date range or say something else to it.
10:32
But if that date range is no longer appropriate, because if it’s a balance sheet report, for example, it’s going to say, with this date range, it’s going to say, as of one point in time, 1231 2020. And if you’re showing two months of data, then that date is no longer you know, the proper date. So if I put if I put this back on report period, then it says as of December 31 2020. So if you if you change that in some way, then then that that no longer is appropriate, I’m going to go back up top, and this vendor filter keeps on going back on there. So I’ll take that off. So then we have the footer. So we have the date prepared time prepared report basis, let’s just check that out.
11:13
So I’m going to say okay, and then if we scroll down, you have these items that will print on the bottom of the report. If you don’t want that, then you can go back up top and say I’m going to remove that customize the report, remove date, time report basis, and just take them off altogether. So I’ll just remove those altogether. And it keeps on putting this filter back on to the vendors. All they’re all say, oh, okay, put that on, I’m gonna go back down. So that’s my, that’s been removed. Now at the bottom there.
11:53
Once you do some of these changes to you can start, you can memorize the report, save the customization. We’ll talk more about that later. But just so you know that for now, if you save the report, you can save it and customize it, if I go to the first tab and go to my reports, then you can start to put your saved reports in your custom reports area over here. So once you do these changes once if I if I never wanted to put my the footer on the report, I could save the report. So we’ll save the customization balance sheet, I’m just gonna say custom balance sheet. And then you have a group here we can add, we’ll talk about that more later.
12:32
But I’ll just save it for now. So we’re gonna save that report says it’s been saved. And then if you go back to the first tab, I’ll do this in the first tab. And I’m going to refresh the screen for my custom reports. Now, for some reason, when I go back over here, it’s not pulling up. But if I duplicate this tab, right click and duplicate the tab, then you can go find them in the custom reports, and they’ll show up there. So let me check that out. Let’s go down to the reports here.
12:57
And then instead of going to your first tab for the standard reports, you’re going to go on over to the custom reports. And then you have it all set up for you, you just need to change the dates once you get that set up. So once you get the customization that you like, then you can start to memorize your reports. You can also customize or sort your reports in those custom reports. And that can be a good tool we’ll talk about in the future. Let’s go back to the customization and go down to the header and footer and look at these last item on the alignment.
13:27
For the alignment we got left align center and right so I’ll say left align just to test it out the footer the same I think we removed the footer but left on the footer. Let’s let’s put the footer back. And then say save that report. And you can see that’ll change the alignment of the header here and the footer down below. Also note that you can change the name up top as well with your item here that will change those items. You can’t change the date however, but as we saw you can put the date back in remove the date if you so choose when you’re doing these custom reports.