QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Chapter 21. Working with QuickBooks 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 can make for a frustrating search, 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 and loss (P&L) report tells you how much income and expenses you had, but a balance sheet shows how much your company is worth.

The second challenge is finding the report you want. After you decide you want to compare the profit of the items you sell, do you look for the corresponding QuickBooks report in the Sales category, Inventory category, or “Jobs, Time & Mileage” category? (If you guessed “Jobs, Time & Mileage” despite that category’s project-oriented name, you’re right.) On the other hand, the “Profit & Loss by Job” report appears in both the Company & Finance category and the “Jobs, Time, & Mileage” category.

The Report Center is a handy way to find the reports you want. Flipping through this book can be even faster, which is why each chapter in this book 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, ...