Management Reports in QuickBooks Online

Hi there, Linda Ardisani, Ardisani Bookkeeping. So I thought I would do a report today for bookkeepers who are working in the QuickBooks Plus version and want to kind of stand out with their reporting. I'm going to actually get into working with QuickBooks Online Advanced very shortly, which has Fathom reporting, which I did get a little peek at. courtesy of my buddy Matthew. And I'm really excited to be able to actually get physically into that file. But this, today's little short lesson, and it will be brief, will be on some of the reporting that's in QuickBooks Online and some of how you can maybe customize it and kind of set yourself apart from other accounting firms and make that reporting look— when you send it to your client, how to impress them with it, because you're able to do a little bit more in the file than you probably realize. So Let me take you to my, my QuickBooks file, which is my law firm one. That's what my business is specific to. And so you have reports, the Report tab right here on the left. I'll take you to it. So by default, these are the 3 that come up and you can star any report you'd like that maybe you use often. Like I like the year-to-date comparison one, or even the profit, actually like the profit and loss comparison one. So if you have an existing business that's been around a while, you You can compare, you know, last year, this year, or maybe even specific ones. I use it in my own business. I look at how well I did last January as opposed to this January or vice versa. So that's in here. But one of the reports that I think kind of underused is the management report tool. And I love this one. It's set by default to this year. So if you were creating reports for your client for last year, you have to come in and then know, select last year, and then come in here and just hit View, right? But there's a little dropdown arrow. And I never realized it until my friend Sarah showed it to me. And she's like, did you know this existed? You can export it to a Word doc, a PDF, or you can make a copy of it. So this is what she showed me. And I was like, whoa, that's really cool. So you can make a copy of it. So now I have an exact copy of the one that I have. But it stayed to this last year box. So I create reports for the attorneys all the time. And I always have to come in. I like this one because I'll show you what it looks like. It's pretty, pretty, pretty decent looking report. It looks really pretty. It's got the logo on it. It looks real professional. And that's what I want to do when I want to reflect that on my client. I want to send this to my client. I want him to be like, or he or she, whoever I'm working with, to go, wow, this is, you know, this doesn't look like your typical canned QuickBooks report. This This is like a really attractive looking report, right? So you can come in here, you can get— these are the ones that are in this, the basic template. And it just looks really nice. It looks a lot better than the report that comes out. And it looks really nice in the Word doc as well. If I want to come over to edit this one, edit it. Now I see the pages of this report, right? So when I come down here to all the pages, let's come all the way down. You'll see this table of contents is also endnotes. So I can just call this endnotes. So this is notes for— or notes for CPAs, even better title. And maybe to CPAs, I mean, most of my clients use CPAs, but I'll use tax professional in case anybody's an EA. Notes for tax professionals. So now I have this section in my in my report grouping. So I would just type in the notes here. So we're actually editing the report to add our note piece. And I can just write in here, you know, this client started payroll in December and did an election to change from an LLC to an LLC that's reporting as an S corp. They purchased some big pieces of artwork, and I've attached copies to the purchases to the transaction, copies of the purchase to the transaction and QBO for your reference. And I just signed my name. So now that'll be on my report. So now I'm going to save this. So you're actually working in the template to get this to come out to show. on the recording, but it's a pretty neat feature. And I like it because if you work in the cloud, right, you're a cloud-based firm. You know, this way I'm not— I'm keeping this contained in the, in the file for the client. I'm going to send this copy to the client because he's now gone through all the books with me and approved everything. And then I'm also going to ship it off on a CC to the CPA. So he's going to have it. So when the client and the CPA do their Zoom meeting or meeting in person, they're gonna be able to go over all of this and my notes are there so that if they need to talk to me, they, they have a way to you know, talk intelligently about what we discussed, my client and I discussed. And it's also a way that maybe the tax professional and I can communicate. So I really love this feature in QuickBooks Online. So thank you, Sarah, for showing this to me. So if I create that report, now that's in there on the template. So remember, that's on the template, and then you're going to need to update it every year, and you don't want to have it come year after year. So you have to remember that that's there. So if I hit View, Here's my report for the law firm, profit and loss, statement of cash flows, balance sheet, AR, AP, and then notes for the tax professional. So as you get down to the very last page, there is my notes. So I think this is really a professional-looking report. And that's what we want to work with law firms or in a professional level or any client really, you want to show that you're a professional firm. This is a great little tool that I don't think a lot of people know about. So I hope that's helpful. Again, big thank you to Sarah for showing me how you could duplicate that because I've been going in and just using the canned report and just changing the dates and I didn't realize it She was showing me on a Word doc and I'm like, that's really cool. So you can make a Word doc out of it, you can make a PDF out of it for your client. It's got so many little options for you to even kind of play around the report, make it your own. So it might not be Fathom, but it's a— it's the next best thing. So I hope that's helpful. I hope that works well for you and your firm, and we will see you next week. Bye now. Bye.