would you like to be an expert in managing a contractor's QuickBooks Online account well then
you should watch this video preparing contractor reports in QuickBooks Online if you have any
questions about this topic you can leave them in the comment section below and I'll do my best
to help you and of course if you feel the video helped you I hope you will click like and don't
forget to subscribe to get updates on new videos that come out all the time QuickBooks reports
for contractors data cover all the different areas of data that you would need to report on
when managing a contractors QuickBooks Online account the main area of data is the chart of
accounts that's the general ledger that we learned about and there are reports that show the results
of that area of data after the contractor makes contractor related transactions but you see there
are other areas of data that have to synchronize with the chart of accounts and those areas of data
contractors also have to keep separate records of like customers with accounts receivable or
managing vendors and workers by tracking time so time and vendors would have a separate set
of reports to manage that area of data just like customers and accounts receivables will have
different reports to show the results of that area of data as well and if you're a contractor you
also have to keep track of your job progress which is a totally different set of data in a different
area of QuickBooks Online all of these areas have to synchronize with the main area of data
the chart of accounts and the general leisure reports are the best way that contractors can
navigate around their QuickBooks account they're the most efficient way of finding anything you
ever entered they also give you a clear picture of the financial events and results and status
of jobs and your entire company contractors only need to set up a few reports there are one or two
reports for each area of data that a contractor would need to manage in total there are only a few
reports you would need to manage everything and we will open and explain each of them one by one
and here they are the first one we will setup is the trial balance it shows the results of
every account in the chart of accounts and what the current balance is of each of them so the
way to do that is to click reports now before we put on the trial balance let's understand what's
available in the QuickBooks Online reports menu you can see that if you click the standard tab
you have all the reports inside each category that quickbooks online makes available and any type of
company can benefit from this very extensive list of reports but we're going to go through this and
we're going to pull out the reports that we need and put them here in this section the custom
reports section by putting them here all we will have to do is click reports custom reports and we
will go directly to those seven reports that are the only reports that a contractor would
need so we start in the standard tab and we're instructed to open the trial balance and save
it in the custom reports section well that's very simple we scroll all the way down to the category
that holds the trial balance which I believe is an a category called for my accountant and the
trial balance is the last one in that category we click on it and of course it's going to show zero
okay you know it tells you a little bit about the reports and you can close this out but of
course it's going to show zero because we haven't recorded any transactions before we save the trial
balance in the customize area we click the date pulldown menu and choose all dates it's very handy
to have the trial balance show us the results of all transactions regardless of date then of
course we click run report and of course it still stays zero because we don't have any transactions
but after it looks the way we need it to look regarding the date we come to the right and
click Save customization and we could put trial balance - mark this was the way mark told you
to save the trial balance so we click Save and if you now click reports and then click custom
reports you see that the trial balance that we just made is right here in the custom report
list it's the only one and if you double click we go right back to the report in the way that
we had saved it the second report is the estimates and progress invoice summary by customer it shows
the progress ok the next report we will put up is estimates and progress invoicing summary by
customer and it shows exactly what it says it shows the progress that you've made towards an
estimate or job by looking at the invoices that were done so you can see the percent complete so
we come to reports and we click standard because that's where we are pulling them from and scroll
down to the section of customer reports and here it is estimates and progress invoicing summary by
customer so we double-click and of course it's a blank report now and conveniently it already
has all dates chosen so you can just click Save customization and click Save and now when you
click reports custom reports you can see that these are the two reports waiting for us on the
custom report list what about this one the open invoice report it shows the unpaid balances of
each of the invoices that you have already sent to the customer so we click reports standard slowly
scroll down to the section of who owes you and find the open invoice report here it is click on
it and again we have to adjust the date to ask the report to show us the results of all transactions
regardless of date click run report and then save customization and then click Save and now if you
click reports and custom you now have these three reports what about the next one transaction list
by customer this is a report that will show all the activity between you and any client and it's
sorted by clients so if you need to check anything you can just go by date and look at the list of
transactions for that client so again we click reports go to the standard area where we pull
the reports out of and go down to the area of not who owes you it's more about the sales and the CS
Transat in the category of sales and customers this is called transaction list by customer and
we could always choose all dates run report save customization and then click Save and now we can
check to see reports custom reports good four down three to go what about profit and loss by customer
this report will tell us how much money you made and spent and kept on each job or project it's
a very nice report so we click reports go to the standard area and that will be right here in the
category of business overview profit and loss by customer again we adjust to ask QuickBooks to show
us the results of all transactions regardless of date click Save customization and then of course
if you click reports custom you double check that oh it didn't it didn't didn't take let's try it
again I guess I missed something profit and loss by customer choose all run report and give it a
moment to show the results of all dates then click Save customization and save now it's ok what's the
next one uninvested credit card charges that were recorded but not yet billed to the customer or job
and again we click reports in the standard area we scroll down to the area of ok it's really I think
it's what you owe and then you go expenses and vendors and I think it's ok we'll find it here
it is ow actually it's in the who owes you area uninvite already shows the results of all dates
and click Save customization and save and the last one that a contractor needs to customize so she or
he can get to it easily is uninvite I'm and it's the same idea as the previous one the onion voice
charges but it's the time that you recorded that you have not yet put on an invoice to bill the
customer for so again reports and it's right over here in the who owes you area on invoice to time
click on it it already shows the results of all dates click Save customization and then click
Save now when we click reports custom reports we have all seven reports and these reports
right at the beginning are going to make it very easy for us to find everything we ever entered
see the results of what's going on and get an overview of each of the different areas of data
congratulations you're all set up and in our next video you will be ready for our very first job