Analyzing your numbers is important in business. The profit and loss report is one of the most important reporting tools you can use in your business. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch will explain how to customize a profit and loss report instead of only using the default profit and loss report settings in QuickBooks.
If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.
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Customizing Where Data Appears On The Report
One of the customizations you can do within a QuickBooks profit and loss report is to customize where your current data appears on the report.
- For example, you can move certain types of income into the other income category to make it appear in a different section of a profit and loss.
- You can do the same with expenses such as cost of goods versus operating expenses.
- You can make the cost of goods expense appear at the top of the profit and loss to track it separate from other expenses.
You can also configure parent-child relationships for specific income and events accounts. This will enable you to show a roll-up of those metrics.
All of this is configured within your chart of accounts. Simply change the settings for specific accounts to determine where they appear on the profit and loss report.
Customizing How The Profit And Loss Report Runs
There are a number of ways to run a profit and loss report. Below are a few potential customizations.
- You can choose cash versus accrual basis accounting for the report. This will determine how income and expenses are shown for different time periods. This is usually based on your preference of running the company or a specific reporting need such as for taxes.
- You can also show comparisons for the current reporting period versus other reporting periods to see trends. This is helpful to analyze changes in your business over time.
- Finally, you can show percentage amounts for income and expenses either as a percentage of income or a percentage of expense. This is helpful for you to see trends over time and also focus in on the biggest financial factors in your business.
Configure Your Profit and Loss Statement
If you are serious about getting valuable insights from your accounting data, you should not just be using the default QuickBooks profit and loss report. Identify the data you need, and configure a customized profit and loss report and workflow in QuickBooks and if you need help in doing this, contact Bernard today to get started.
You can also visit MissionBusinessPodcast.com for more insights that Bernard has been sharing with us in the previous episodes.
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