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Management Reporting in QuickBooks. By David Carter

Management reporting in QuickBooks is very easy because it has the best on-screen report writer in the business. No other package comes near it. However, QuickBooks has one or two design peculiarities which can confuse new users.

Daybooks - lack of
The first is the problem of DAYBOOKS. Because of its file structure QuickBooks cannot print off a simple daybook of invoices with a single line for each that shows Gross-VAT-Net.

[Try it. Choose Edit - Simple Find (or just Ctrl-F). You can print a list of any transaction type but there is only one amount, and it's Gross. There's no breakout of Net and VAT.]

QuickBooks then compounds the problem by sorting the list of transactions into Date order. Unfortunately, it's the wrong date. It ought to be the Posting date (when the invoice was posted onto the computer), but in fact it's the Document Date (the date printed on the invoice). So if the invoice is backdated, or the operator simply makes a mistake typing in the date, the invoice seems to have disappeared.

And when invoices seem to disappear, it upsets people.

I hope to have provided a solution to both these issues in:
Tutorial: Create a sales daybook in QuickBooks.
Tutorial: Create a sales daybook in QuickBooks - part 2.

This will enable you to create permanent daybooks in Excel for both sales and purchase invoices.

To see some previous correspondence about the Daybook problem click here.

Job Costing
The other problem area is Job Costing. It doesn't seem possible to create a report that brings together all the costs entered agains a job via all transaction types - purchase invoices, timesheets, purchase orders, etc:

Opinion: How Good is QuickBooks at Job Costing?.
Job Costing in QuickBooks - problem with Journals.

To see a proposed solution, follow the instructions from Intuit's Technical Support Manager Alex Blakey in his comment on:
Tips on QuickBooks and Job Costing – Part 1.

Tips and Queries
There are some useful Any Answers tips on report writing in QuickBooks in the Tips and Queries series.

QuickBooks - Tips and Queries #1

QuickBooks - Tips and Queries #2

QuickBooks - Tips and Queries #3

Related material
David Carter's reporting tutorials and pivot table tips are archived in AccountingWEB's Management Reporting section. Key articles include:
Reporting tutorials index: Use MS Query to extract and analyse accounts data
Reporting Tools #4: Introduction to summary reporting
Towards an analysis-ready file for reporting #1
Towards an analysis-ready file for reporting #2
Management Reporting in Sage Line 50 and Instant
Want to learn more about pivot tables? Start here
Improve your reporting skills with self-teach tutorials
An introduction to Excel-driven reporting tools

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