QuickBooks simplifies and speeds up your daily accounting work, but you’re missing out on valuable insight if you don’t tailor your report data.
Do you remember why you started using QuickBooks? You may have simply wanted to produce sales forms and record payments electronically. Gradually, you expanded your use of the software, perhaps paying and tracking bills through it and keeping an eagle eye on your inventory levels. Certainly, you’ve run at least some of the pre-built report templates offered by all versions of QuickBooks since their inception.
QuickBooks’ automation of your daily bookkeeping tasks has undoubtedly served you well. But that’s merely limited use; now it’s time to take advantage of QuickBooks’ greatest strength: customizable reports.
One of the rewards for diligently entering all of your accounting information is a better grasp of your company’s financial performance to date. That insight ultimately leads to better business decisions that can contribute to your future growth and success.
Making Reports Meaningful
Once a report is customized, what’s challenging is:
- Understanding what each report is designed to tell you
- Determining which reports are most relevant to your business information needs
- Designing each to produce the critical insight you need in order to move forward.
- Comparing your customized reports to your company budget/forecast
You can understand what many reports do by their titles, their content, and the descriptions QuickBooks offers.
The other challenges are a bit more formidable. It’s our job to assist you in establishing a workflow in QuickBooks to keep accurate records and produce necessary transactions. We don’t want you to end up in garbage in and garbage out.
We can assist you in your annual, quarter or monthly budget or forecast your business need. We can help you in analysis, and interpretation of any variances you may have in the reports, because we want you to do more than just maintain the status quo.
Well formulated reports can help you:
– Spot cash flow problems, maintain the right inventory levels
– See which jobs are the most profitable, and compare your estimates to costs
– Identify your best customers, your most sought-after items
– Your most successful sales reps etc.
Careful customization of your reports, thorough analysis of the data will help you indicate your company’s future direction. So if we haven’t gone over this with you already, we encourage you to schedule some time with us so you can get the maximum benefit from your QuickBooks reports to help you make a smarter business decisions.
Thank you and we look forward to working with you,
Ben Derebie, MBA, CMA
Certified Management Accountant
Advanced Certified in QuickBooks
& Enterprise Solutions ProAdvisor
