How to run reports in QuickBooks

Check the accounting method your reports will use. Go to Settings, select Account and settings, then Advanced. In the Accounting section, select the pencil icon, and the Accounting method dropdown offers Accrual or Cash. Reports start from whichever method is set there. Select Save, then Done, if you change it.

Know which report you're after. Standard reports can be searched by name or browsed as a list. If you only need the figures for one account, you can run a report straight from the chart of accounts instead, as the steps below show.

Reports don't all look the same. Intuit notes that a report's screens differ between the classic view and the new enhanced experience, so a button may sit in a different place from the one described here.

1. Go to Reports and select Standard reports.
2. Use the Type report name here dropdown to search for a report, or browse the list.
3. Select the report to open it. You can customise it once it's open.
4. To email it, open the More actions dropdown and select Email report.
5. Fill in or change the recipient's email address, the subject, the email body and the file name. For several recipients, separate their addresses with commas.
6. Select Send email, then choose Excel, CSV or PDF for the file format.
7. To export it, open the Export/Print dropdown, choose Export to Excel or Export as CSV, and save the file.
8. To print it or keep a PDF, open the Export/Print dropdown, select Print/Save as PDF, adjust the print settings and select Print.

For one account's report, go to Settings, select Chart of accounts and find the account. Select Run report in its ACTION column, or from the Account history dropdown.

An emailed report reaches each recipient as a file in the format you picked, and an exported one lands wherever you saved it. Intuit suggests exporting to Excel if you want to change the font or colour, or otherwise restyle how the report looks.

To keep a customised report for next time, select Save As, type a descriptive Report name and select Save. Turn on Share with others if other users should see it: it appears on their Custom reports tab, but only for people who already use the company, not users you invite later. Saved reports are under Reports, then Custom reports, and if you edit one, save it again to keep the changes.

Intuit says Essentials and Plus can group and organise reports in the Custom reports list, using the Add to group dropdown or + Add new group when saving. A group of reports can then be emailed on a regular schedule. Scheduling only works for reports in Modern View and isn't available on QuickBooks Online Simple Start.

If the columns don't fit on the page, open Export/Print, select Print/Save as PDF and switch the Orientation dropdown to Landscape. Intuit also suggests resizing or removing columns, making the margins smaller, printing on legal-size paper, scaling the page by a percentage, or checking whether your printer driver supports scaling.

Tick Smart page break to keep related items together on each page, and Repeat header to print the header on every page. To take the QuickBooks Online web address and other details off the top and bottom of a printout, change your browser settings.