One of the most misunderstood features of QuickBooks Desktop Reporting for even experienced users are the Advanced Report Settings. It is a topic many ProAdvisors forget to instruct their new Desktop users about when teaching the fundamental aspects of creating and modifying reports.
By default, most reports display only Active information for rows and columns, but you can change this within the Advanced Reports Settings feature. You can make several other adjustments that may be appropriate to your report requirements within this feature.
These settings vary based on Summary, Detailed or Transactional type reports.
Advanced Options for Summary Reports
(1) Select any QuickBooks Desktop Summary Report (like the Profit & Loss Summary Report, for example).
(2) Click on Customize Report to open the Modify Report Window.
(3) On the Display tab, click the Advanced button to display the Advanced Options dialog box.
(4) Select your desired options for Display Rows, Display Columns, Reporting Calendar.
(5) For Rows and Columns:
- Active displays accounts if there has been any activity (at all) during the reporting period.
- All displays accounts and names even if there has been no activity (of any type) during the reporting period.
- Non-zero hides all accounts and names that have a zero balance during the reporting period.
Advanced Options for Detail and Transaction Reports
The advanced options available when you are using a detail or transaction report in QuickBooks Desktop differ from the options available for summary reports.
(1) Select any QuickBooks Desktop Detail or Transaction Report (like a Sales by Customer Detail Report, for example).
(2) Click on Customize Report to open the Modify Report Window.
(3) On the Display tab, click the Advanced button to display the Advanced Options dialog box.
(4) Include allows you to specify whether you want to include all transactions, or only those that show activity (are In Use) during the period covered by the report.
(5) Depending on your report, the Open Balance/Aging option determines how QuickBooks calculates a customer's open balance on an aging report.
- Choose Current to show the customer's open balance as of today.
- Choose (as of) Report Date to show the customer's open balance as of the ending date of the report.
These are critical features for both Summary and Detail QuickBooks Desktop Reports that almost every user needs to be aware of and, most probably, make use of some time or another.
If ProAdvisors, accountants or bookkeepers don't instruct their clients in using these features, users will simply think that QuickBooks cannot provide the kind of reporting they require and they will go searching for an external reporting app as a solution.