The 4 QuickBooks Reports Small Business Owners Need

The 4 QuickBooks Reports Small Business Owners Need

QuickBooks offers business users a variety of reports. Knowing which to use and how to use them is essential, and can mean the difference between success and failure.

One of the first things a business owner needs to make sure of is: does the business have positive cash flow to support the operations? One of the primary reports to determine this is the company’s Profit and Loss Statement. This will inform the owner of the amount of sales and the costs of sales as well as all of the administrative costs.

The next is the Balance Sheet, which helps the business owner know how much cash the business has. This is inclusive of all the assets of the company including the amounts owed by customers. In addition, with the Balance Sheet report, the owner will be able to know the amounts owed to others and the net value of the company.

Just knowing the amount owed by customers in total is not enough, however. The owner will want to know exactly who owes money and if that amount is overdue or current. This is critical for the owner to correctly identify which customers to contact for payment. The best report for this is an Accounts Receivable Aging Schedule.

Just as the Accounts Receivable report lets you know who owes you money the Accounts Payable Aging Report lets you know whom you owe money to. This way you are never late with a payment.

The Profit and Loss is the most important report for a business owner to use. There are a variety of P&L reports available, if the proper input has been done throughout the fiscal year. The easiest of all is the Profit and Loss detail report. This report will prepare the P&L with every item in detail with each transaction listed individually. Another good analytical tool is the previous year comparison report. This displays the P&L in comparison with the previous year for the same period, so you can see if you are doing better or worse than last year. If the input has been done for individual jobs, you can prepare a P&L for each job to see which jobs were profitable and which were not. Then you can learn from the jobs that were not profitable and not make the same mistakes moving forward. You also get to see what was done right with the jobs that were, and try to repeat.

At the end of the day, your financial information is yours to view any way you see fit. Above are just a few examples of how to get started. Please consult us for the best way to prepare your information.

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