Reports & Forms

Does QuickBooks 2011 Offer New Online Forms Customization Tools?

Chief Mechanic · September 19, 2010 ·

Yes, beginning with QuickBooks 2011, users can take advantage of new online QuickBooks Forms Customization tools.

Methods to download and modify form templates available in earlier versions of QuickBooks are still available in QuickBooks 2011.

The new online tool is largely a vehicle to market Intuit’s forms that are un-related to accounting (such as business cards) and other services, such as purchasing a logo design by running a contest.

Access to the new tools can be found by opening the Templates window via the Lists->Templates menu selection and clicking on the Create Form Design… menu selection on the Templates button in the lower left corner of the window.

Here are screenshots of the first step of the forms design process and the Apply Design window to use a form design in QuickBooks:

QuickBooks 2011 Online Forms Customization

QuickBooks 2011 Online Forms Customization Apply Design Window

Users can edit and re-apply changes to forms customized using the online tool for a period of 30 days. After that period, any additional changes, including applying the form design to new form templates, will incur a fee of $4.99.

The new online forms customization tools don’t extend the capabilities of QuickBooks to customize forms. They simply provide a visual, online interface with a heavy dose of marketing for services that are unrelated to accounting software.

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What Are the Differences Between A/R Reports In a Multicurrency Environment?

Chief Mechanic · September 13, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks 2009 there are 6 reports to provide information about what customers or clients owe to a firm. They are:

A/R Aging Summary
A/R Aging Detail
Customer Balance Summary
Customer Balance Detail
Open Invoices
Collections Report

These reports are found on the Reports->Customers & Receivables menu selection. Each report is intended to provide certain information, and in a multicurrency environment the information reported may appear to contradict information on financial statements, such as a firm’s balance sheet. The contradiction is only apparent, because by design some of these reports do not include transactions that are included in balance sheet accounts, such as General Journal entries from home currency adjustments.

In the example reports that follow, the company’s balance sheet shows a balance for Accounts Receivable – EUR (the A/R account for the 1 customer reported) of $17,500. This balance consists of a $15,000 invoice and a $2,500 exchange gain recorded as a home currency adjustment. Home currency adjustments are recorded as General Journal entries. For simplicity, we’ve filtered these reports to show a single customer. When comparing the totals on these reports to amounts reported on a balance sheet, it’s important that filter settings for the report match the balance sheet date and include all relevant transactions for a balance sheet A/R account. However, even when filters are set appropriately, the totals on these reports may not match the balance sheet because of filters that are embedded in the reports themselves that restrict the types of customer transactions reported. These embedded filters are part of the report design and can’t be changed.

The A/R Aging Summary and A/R Aging Detail reports show unpaid invoices and statement charges by billing period but do not include General Journal entries. Therefore, these reports do not match the amount reported on the balance sheet.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency A/R Aging Summary

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency A/R Aging Detail

The Customer Balance Summary and Customer Balance Detail reports show all transactions related to customers. The detail report is grouped by customer and job, where the Amount column is the original transaction amount and the Balance column is the open or unpaid amount. Because these reports show all customer transactions, they will include currency adjustments posted to a customer’s account as General Journal entries. Therefore, the total shown on these reports does match the balance sheet.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency Customer Balance Detail Summary Report

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency Customer Balance Detail Report

The Open Invoices report lists unpaid invoices and statement charges, grouped and subtotaled by customer and job, but it does not include General Journal entries from currency adjustments. Therefore, the total shown on this report does not match the balance sheet.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency Open Invoices Report

The Collections Report lists overdue invoices and statement charges grouped by customer and job, along with the customer’s contact name and phone number. Because this report only includes invoices and statement charges, it will not include currency adjustments posted to the customer’s account as General Journal entries. Therefore, the total shown on this report does not match the balance sheet.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Multicurrency Collections Report

If your goal is to produce detail or summary reports to substantiate the amounts reported on a firm’s balance sheet, either the Customer Balance Summary or Customer Balance Detail report is the best choice, because it includes all transactions and doesn’t exclude General Journal entries. In a multicurrency environment, where General Journal entries are common, other reports may appear to contradict the balance sheet amounts because they do not include these General Journal entries.

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Can I Produce an Inventory Stock Status Report for a Single Vendor and a Range of Items?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

Without a custom report, you can’t produce that exact report: an inventory stock status for a single vendor and a range of items.

Let’s review the flexibility available when generating the default report by visiting the Reports->Inventory->Item Stock Status by Item menu and clicking on the Modify Report… button.

To change what records are reported, click the Filters tab.

Multiple filters can be applied to narrow the records reported. Unfortunately, this report does not offer the ability to choose the vendors whose products are included on the report, just a single Vendor Type. In this example, we’ll choose vendors whose Vendor Type is set to Materials.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Report Inventory Stock Status by Item Vendor Type

Like our first filter, our second filter doesn’t perfectly address the requested report, but it comes fairly close. Move the slider in the Choose Filter box to Item and click on the pull down to select the type of filter to be applied to that entry. The off-the-shelf QuickBooks report can’t filter a range of items with starting and ending points on the range. This would be a practical necessity if there were a large number of items in the range. However, the filter can select all of 1 item type, such as all services, or multiple items. If the desired range is small, choosing individual items has the same practical effect as entering a range. In this example, we’ve selected 4 items: Cabinets, Cabinet Pulls, Light Pine, and Door Frame.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Report Inventory Stock Status by Item Select Items

With those settings, our report will include those 4 items that also have a Vendor Type set to Materials.

QuickBooks Report Inventory Stock Status by Item Filtered

Our filtered Inventory Stock Status by Item report doesn’t perfectly match the requested report, but we’ve managed to narrow the information reported considerably. If you need to filter this information based on Vendor (rather than Vendor Type) and need to include a range of items because the number of items is too large to select individually, we can design a custom report that extracts just the information you need.

If you’d like more information on a custom report, just send us an email or submit our contact form.

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How Do I Produce a Report of Vendor Purchases?

Chief Mechanic · September 10, 2010 ·

Let’s assume that vendor purchases include both purchases of inventory and expenses paid. With that assumption, there no simple report to address all situations. Finding the right report depends on the information you want to include on the report.

QuickBooks provides 2 reports that include vendor purchases: the Purchases by Vendor Detail Report and the Purchases by Vendor Summary Report. Both of these reports can be found on the Reports->Purchases menu.

These reports are a simple way to identify vendor purchases, but they contain an important limitation: the reports only include purchases recorded on the Items tab of bills, checks, and credit card charges. They do not include transactions recorded on the Expenses tab or payroll-related expenses.

Another approach is to use the Expenses by Vendor Detail Report or the Expenses by Vendor Summary Report, found on the Reports->Company & Financial menu. However, this approach also contains a limitation: it only includes transactions sent to a general ledger expense account (whether or not the transaction was entered on the Items or the Expenses tab), not vendor purchases of inventory, which are additions to assets.

Vendor purchases (both purchases of inventory and expenses paid) are not the combination of the Purchases by Vendor and the Expenses by Vendor reports. That’s because it’s possible to enter a transaction on the Items tab where the amount is sent to a general ledger expense account based on the account for that Item. As a result, such a transaction would appear on both reports, and combining the values on these reports would result in double-counting.

Yet another approach is to start with a Custom Transaction Detail Report (or the Summary report if only summary totals are required) and to filter the report for certain transaction types. At the simplest level, filter the report by Transaction Type and choose Multiple Transaction Types from the pull down. When the Select Transaction Types window appears, select Check, Credit Card, Bill, CCard Credit, and Bill Credit. Those selections will capture vendor purchases by check, bill, or credit card, net of all credits.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Vendor Purchases

With that 1 filter applied, this report is a comprehensive list of purchases by vendor. However, the report includes the payment side of each transaction, and there is no easy filter setting to restrict which accounts appear on the report and avoid the risk that a vendor purchase in that account would be missed.

Which approach is best suited to identify vendor purchases ultimately depends on the how transactions are entered in QuickBooks and the information sought after on the report.

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What Does the Detail Level Filter Do?

Chief Mechanic · September 6, 2010 ·

When running a report in QuickBooks, the output is controlled by the Filters set for that report.

The Detail Level is one such filter.

It has 3 possible settings:

All
Summary only
All except summary

Many transactions in QuickBooks can have multiple line items. For example, a customer invoice may consist of 2 separate line items of $50 each that total $100.

With the Detail Level filter set to All, a QuickBooks report would show both the individual line items andthe total. In the above example, that’s the 2 line items of $50 each and the transaction total of $100.

With the Detail Level filter set to Summary only, a QuickBooks report would show only the transaction total. In the above example, that’s $100.

With the Detail Level filter set to All except summary, a QuickBooks report would show only the detail lines and exclude the transaction total. In the above example, that’s the 2 line items of $50 each.

The function of the Detail Level report filter is summarized in this Intuit knowledgebase article.

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