QuickBooks Consulting and Information Management |
| QuickBooks Reports |
| Richard Torian CPA, CMA, CFM, MBA Advanced Certified QuickBooks/POS Pro-Advisor |
QuickBooks provides more than 100 default reports requiring only clicks to bring up the
reports. Since the reports can be modified in dozens of ways to customize the reports, the
user easily has more than a thousand options to bring up transactions, data, and information
the user has entered into QuickBooks.
If you are not able to find the information you need, the reason may not be that QuickBooks is
unable to provide the information through its reporting capability. But, rather, the reason may
be the number of available options to generate reports may simply be too overwhelming to
someone without considerable experience in using QuickBooks reports, and with good
accounting and QuickBooks skills.
I have both the experience and the skills to help you successfully determine whether the
reports that you need are available in QuickBooks. Please contact me if you need this help.
Another QuickBooks feature easily used is the exporting of reports to Excel. Excel offers
extraordinary capabilities to do calculations and analysis on data exported from QuickBooks.
The use of these capabilities may not be recognized by a business owner without sufficient
Excel use and accounting experience. I might be able to help you use this additional
QuickBooks reporting capability.
I strongly recommend to all QuickBooks users that they insure that QuickBooks internal
reporting capabilities, supplemented by Excel’s capabilities, are not able to provide the
reporting needed before investments in third-party applications are made. Probably too often
users have turned to third-party applications when QuickBooks reports were available to meet
the users’ needs.
A third reporting option available to QuickBooks Enterprise users is the open database
connectivity (ODBC) application that can be set up fairly easily. Once set up, data from the
dozens of databases contained in QuickBooks can be pulled from QuickBooks into an Excel
spreadsheet (and other applications) using the ODBC feature.
Data in some of these QuickBooks tables, potentially of use to users, are not available in
QuickBooks reports. Here are four examples:
1. Individual items that make up group items and sales tax group items are not available on
reports. Each group item has to be opened to see the individual item components. Using the
ODBC feature, a spreadsheet can be created that shows the items in a group. Click the
following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or 2007 edition on your computer
required) to see an example of a spreadsheet generated using the ODBC feature that shows
individual items in a group item:
2. Reports that effectively show sales tax amounts for each individual invoice are not
available in QuickBooks. Also, shipping addresses (versus billing addresses) for individual
sales are not directly shown on any reports. Click the following link to open an Excel
spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or 2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a
ODBC-generated spreadsheet that shows individual revenue amounts, sales tax amounts, sales
tax total, and shipping addresses for a group of invoices:
3. Several databases in QuickBooks (e.g. time tracking; vehicles mileage tracking; the TO
DO database; customer and vendor records; etc.) allow the recording of notes. Although
QuickBooks reports that show data and information from these databases include the notes
entered, the reports only will show a limited number of characters from the notes field. This
can mean that the notes that exceed this character number limitation will be cut off at the
character limit. ODBC-generated spreadsheets from these databases do not limit the
characters in the notes field. Click the following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003
or 2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a ODBC-generated
spreadsheet that shows complete notes:
4. Users can enter an assembly "build point" at the assembly item record. This build point is
synonymous to “reorder point” for inventory part items. Although reorder point amounts are
available on QuickBooks inventory reports, no inventory reports show build point amounts. An
ODBC-generated spreadsheet using the assembly item database will show build point amounts
for all assembly items. Click the following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or
2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a ODBC-generated spreadsheet
showing build point amounts:
ODBC-generated spreadsheets can provide some useful data not available on internal
QuickBooks reports and QuickBooks data exported to Excel. However, the learning curve for
using the ODBC feature is fairly high and testing is needed to find if the desired data can be
pulled into one spreadsheet.
If you are an Enterprise user and believe that using the ODBC feature might provide a report
not otherwise available, I would be happy to consult with you about whether the ODBC feature
can deliver what you want.
reports. Since the reports can be modified in dozens of ways to customize the reports, the
user easily has more than a thousand options to bring up transactions, data, and information
the user has entered into QuickBooks.
If you are not able to find the information you need, the reason may not be that QuickBooks is
unable to provide the information through its reporting capability. But, rather, the reason may
be the number of available options to generate reports may simply be too overwhelming to
someone without considerable experience in using QuickBooks reports, and with good
accounting and QuickBooks skills.
I have both the experience and the skills to help you successfully determine whether the
reports that you need are available in QuickBooks. Please contact me if you need this help.
Another QuickBooks feature easily used is the exporting of reports to Excel. Excel offers
extraordinary capabilities to do calculations and analysis on data exported from QuickBooks.
The use of these capabilities may not be recognized by a business owner without sufficient
Excel use and accounting experience. I might be able to help you use this additional
QuickBooks reporting capability.
I strongly recommend to all QuickBooks users that they insure that QuickBooks internal
reporting capabilities, supplemented by Excel’s capabilities, are not able to provide the
reporting needed before investments in third-party applications are made. Probably too often
users have turned to third-party applications when QuickBooks reports were available to meet
the users’ needs.
A third reporting option available to QuickBooks Enterprise users is the open database
connectivity (ODBC) application that can be set up fairly easily. Once set up, data from the
dozens of databases contained in QuickBooks can be pulled from QuickBooks into an Excel
spreadsheet (and other applications) using the ODBC feature.
Data in some of these QuickBooks tables, potentially of use to users, are not available in
QuickBooks reports. Here are four examples:
1. Individual items that make up group items and sales tax group items are not available on
reports. Each group item has to be opened to see the individual item components. Using the
ODBC feature, a spreadsheet can be created that shows the items in a group. Click the
following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or 2007 edition on your computer
required) to see an example of a spreadsheet generated using the ODBC feature that shows
individual items in a group item:
2. Reports that effectively show sales tax amounts for each individual invoice are not
available in QuickBooks. Also, shipping addresses (versus billing addresses) for individual
sales are not directly shown on any reports. Click the following link to open an Excel
spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or 2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a
ODBC-generated spreadsheet that shows individual revenue amounts, sales tax amounts, sales
tax total, and shipping addresses for a group of invoices:
3. Several databases in QuickBooks (e.g. time tracking; vehicles mileage tracking; the TO
DO database; customer and vendor records; etc.) allow the recording of notes. Although
QuickBooks reports that show data and information from these databases include the notes
entered, the reports only will show a limited number of characters from the notes field. This
can mean that the notes that exceed this character number limitation will be cut off at the
character limit. ODBC-generated spreadsheets from these databases do not limit the
characters in the notes field. Click the following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003
or 2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a ODBC-generated
spreadsheet that shows complete notes:
4. Users can enter an assembly "build point" at the assembly item record. This build point is
synonymous to “reorder point” for inventory part items. Although reorder point amounts are
available on QuickBooks inventory reports, no inventory reports show build point amounts. An
ODBC-generated spreadsheet using the assembly item database will show build point amounts
for all assembly items. Click the following link to open an Excel spreadsheet (Excel 2003 or
2007 edition on your computer required) to see an example of a ODBC-generated spreadsheet
showing build point amounts:
ODBC-generated spreadsheets can provide some useful data not available on internal
QuickBooks reports and QuickBooks data exported to Excel. However, the learning curve for
using the ODBC feature is fairly high and testing is needed to find if the desired data can be
pulled into one spreadsheet.
If you are an Enterprise user and believe that using the ODBC feature might provide a report
not otherwise available, I would be happy to consult with you about whether the ODBC feature
can deliver what you want.