QuickBooks offers a standard set of reports by default that cover a broad section of what you’ll need, but they may not cover everything that you want to review. Fortunately, you can customize reports so they pull the information you’re looking for, and save any reports you customize so they’re one click away the next time you need them.
When you have a report open, there are a couple options across the top that you can change, which vary slightly based on which report you’re using. Click Customize in the upper right, and you’ll get more options to make the report your own. In the Customize window, once you’ve made the changes you want, click Run Report in the lower right. If you want to run the customized report in the future, click Save Customization in the upper right, give it a name, and add it to a group. You can find all your saved reports by going clicking the Reports tab on the left side of QuickBooks and going to Custom Reports. For individual reports, you can click Edit to change the report’s name, or click on the down arrow next to the Edit button to export it as an Excel file or PDF. For a group of reports, click Edit to set a schedule of when you want to have the reports emailed to you, and you can export the group of reports as a PDF with all the reports in a single file.
If you have a set of reports that you run on a fixed schedule, e.g. weekly or monthly, you can save them in a group and set them to run on a schedule. You can have QuickBooks email them to one or more people on a schedule, e.g. reports for your CFO or the accountant who prepares your Form 990 or tax returns.
The Reports section also has a tab for Management Reports. This is similar to running a group of customized reports, but gives you expanded options. QuickBooks gives you a couple default management reports, which you can customize, and you can also add new ones. Each management report can have a cover page, a table of contents, preliminary pages (e.g. for an executive summary), financial reports, and end notes. The added pages make this a good option for more formal reporting, e.g. for when senior management or the board of directors is having a meeting. From the list of management reports, you can click View to see a report, or click the down arrow next to the View button to get options to edit, send (email), or export as a PDF or Microsoft Word document. The Send option lets you select who you’re sending it to, add a subject line, and write the body of the email. The report itself will be attached as a PDF.