Jaclyn Anku, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: On today’s episode of In the Know, we’ll explore how to create advisory insights using custom reporting in QuickBooks Online with ProAdvisor and trainer Terrell Turner. This is an excerpt from the custom reporting course found in our newly reimagined Quickbooks Online Certification, Level Two. Terrell will walk you through using the Report Center, Performance Center, cash planning tools, and sharing reports. So, with that, let me turn it over to Terrell.
Terrell Turner: Thanks Jaclyn.
What I want to talk about is using the Report Center, because QuickBooks is a great tool for accelerating advisory and we know our clients really want advisory. The way you do that is by combining your accounting knowledge with an understanding of the client. The Report Center will be an amazing tool to help you do that. So we're going to walk through a few steps on how to get value out of the Report Center:
- The first step we want to cover is using the Report Center. To access it, you're going to look at the left-hand menu; that's where you're going to run default reports. You can save customized reports, and you can create and actually share reports as well. You know, the reports can easily be found by looking through either the category or looking for the specific name that you want to search for.
- The next step in the Report Center custom reports. Now this becomes great if you want to structure reports in a unique way, where you might have looked at the defaults and you say, hey, your clients want to see it a little bit differently. Well, you can customize the reports, and you want to make sure that when you customize a report, you can save it for future usage.
- Now in the third step, when we start using the Report Center, a couple of things you may notice is that you might want to create a customized report or may want to look at some of your standard reports. Well, you'll have the option to do both.
The important thing, as I mentioned before, is that you want to really make it personal to the client to whom you're trying to provide advisory. If you select the pencil icon, it will give you the option to really see a little bit more of what you can do with the reports. And then what you want to start looking at is that, if you want to change the date range, you can look at a different period of time when it comes down to the reports because you may not necessarily be looking at the same exact period every single time. So you want to click the date range, and that will give you the option where you can select the dates you want to see. Now do keep in mind when it comes down to the balance sheet, it is going to be at a point in time. It is not going to show up similar to the way the P&L does, where it shows you data from one date to another. The balance sheet is going to show you a point in time. Keep that in mind when you run a balance sheet report.
Now, another important feature in the reports is when we really look at the “group by,” where you can actually start to select predefined groupings or filters. This becomes very important for advisory if you have to repeat reports, or if there's something you know your clients want to see. Instead of manually changing it every single time, you can actually predefine your groups and filters. When it comes down to choosing your filters, you want to think about how the data will show up in the report, like what columns do you need? What information and segmentation do you want the data to really focus on? If we're going to provide advisory, we want to make sure it is the most relevant to the audience we are trying to speak to. And then you also have general options that determine how the reports will be displayed visually. Again, you want to think about this: If I'm going to communicate this information to my client, how does this information need to look? How do we want it to look? Those options become very important to that visual presentation. Now within that, you also have the option to select what columns you want—like what columns of data and the order that you want the columns to go in.
You can remove, add, and make sure that only the important information or the pertinent information actually shows up. Then when you're finished with this, as we said before, make sure you hit the Save button. If you just hit save, it's going to save it with the same name. Now let's say that you wanted to create a different format. You want to click save as and give it a name, and can also add it to the groups to make for quick access to the files as well, but make sure you hit the Save button. When it comes down to really looking at your reporting center, knowing all of this customization is there will help you better communicate the information to your clients.
When it comes down to advisory, having access to the right set of data in a very efficient and quick manner will allow you to be a much better advisor. Another thing to think about when it comes down to the reports is the classic vs. modern view. The reports will eventually all become in the modern view, but for now, you have the opportunity to switch back to the classic view if you're used to seeing the reports show up that way.
The views or access to reports you have may vary depending on the different plans you have; the type of QuickBooks plan you have may impact the types of reports that are available within your system, so make sure you think about that as you're thinking about what's important to the client. Are they set up on the right plan so you can provide them with the right level of information?
The next thing we're going to talk about is sharing the reports. This becomes very important, because there are multiple ways that you can actually share the reports. There is the feature of being able to email it. You can add the reports to the management reports and you can also schedule things. These actions can save you a lot of time and allow you to add more value to your clients. Now when it comes down to emailing reports, this is a pretty cool feature, because a lot of the time, your clients may want their reports emailed to them, instead of you going through the process manually downloading it, saving it to your computer, transferring it over, and then emailing it over. You can actually use a more straightforward approach where you can actually email it while you're in the QuickBooks tool.
To do that, when you go into the reports, you'll select the email report from the More Options drop-down, and then you can go through the steps, list out who you want the email to go to, and actually add a message when they get this email so they'll actually recognize it. If there are some things you want to call out, you'll have the option to do that. And you can also send the report, whether it's in Excel, CSV or PDF format. When it comes down to adding to the management reports, you can also choose to do this in the More Options drop-down; this will add the report to a package so it can be easily shared along with other reports. It also allows you to put an even nicer face and packaging of the information that you want to share with your clients, which allows them to see you as a more valuable resource.
When it comes to scheduling reports, let's walk through a couple of steps:
- Now, in the first step, once you click on the More Actions drop-down, you click on scheduling the report. This will allow you to share reports on a regular basis. This becomes very important for advisory because if you have agreed to share reports on a consistent schedule, you can go ahead and program that information in so you don't have to manually do it every time. What you want to do is you want to make sure that the reporting period is dynamic, because if you don't make it dynamic, it may end up sending them the report in the same date, over and over again. So make sure you don't skip that process of making the report date dynamic, rather than doing it on the custom.
- The next step to scheduling a report is to set when you want the first report to be sent and how frequently you want it sent. This becomes a big winner, because, again, you can automatically set it up for the time and the frequency when the report will start and continue to be sent.
- Step three is where you want to enter the email address of the clients or individuals who you want to receive this information. You can also include a note; this will be something that will automatically be sent to them, and it will be sent to the people who are on the receiving list.
Once you go through this step, then what you want to do is click save, because this will then give the system the signal to say, hey, this report and this schedule are ready to be sent based on the parameters you set. In the Custom Report tab, you can also select the menu and click on Actions. You can also add the columns you want to view where you want to see the actual schedule that you have laid out. If you already have an existing schedule, and let's say the client hires more people and they want more people to see it, you can always go back to see what reports we already scheduled. You can also go in, and make some updates and adjustments to existing schedule reports, or you can determine, hey, we need to add new schedule reports.
The next thing we're going to look at is the Performance Center, which becomes a really, really good tool for accountants. This is a helpful resource that allows you to really make this process even more seamless and more productive for you as the accountant who's providing advisory services to your client.
In the first step, when you get into the Performance Center, you want to pay attention to customizable charts, a kind of music to the ears of anyone who's trying to do advisory. The customized charts will allow you to really adjust and present the information in the way that is relevant to the client.
Here are a couple of benefits of the customized chart. They help the client quickly see what is happening in their business. It also enables them to recognize trends, because, let's be honest, most of the clients you have are probably going to be overwhelmed if you send them a page full of numbers, but the charts will help them see the trends in a way that's a lot less intimidating. It helps them monitor the KPIs—the things that are most important and most relevant. Now depending on the type of chart, it may be possible to apply some filters to compare the data with previous periods. Depending on your client's industry, there may be some industry charts that might be available for some comparison.
In the second step in the Performance Center, the charts can be shared with your client individually. This is a great one, because there may be some charts that you set up that are great for you, as the advisor, to look at, and then there may be charts that you want the client to see as well.
Charts can be shared with clients individually by selecting the three-dot menu in the bottom right corner of the chart widget. This will create a PDF of the chart that can easily be shared, and then you can export multiple charts at once. Select Export, and you can select the charts to be included in the exported PDF. When it comes down to tracking sales and performance, this one becomes a little more involved, and to be honest with you, I will say that this can really help you actually improve the value you're delivering to your clients; they are going to be impressed if you're using these tools to the best of your ability.
So, let's go into those a little bit more. Once we're ready for the tracking of the sales performance, we'll go into step two. You want to make sure you have a unique name for the period that is set, and then in the group by drop-down, you want to select items that should be selected and the relevant items added, because you may not want to run this report for everything. There may be specific things you want, so you want to make sure you select the ones that are relevant. And finally, the previous year-same period should be selected in the compare section.
Jaclyn Anku: Terrell, thank you so much for leading us through that training, and thank you for watching. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. We'll catch you next time you.
