Create, view, or edit a Management report

Feature availability by subscription

Your access to Management report features depends on your subscription tier.

Create and edit a management report

Build a multi-page document from scratch or use templates to combine cover pages, executive summaries, and dashboards.

1. Go to Reports, then select Management reports.
2. Select Create report to choose a pre-built template, or select Create custom to start from scratch.
3. Within the report editor, customise your package using the side panel:
   • Cover page: Select a cover style, add your company logo, and edit the report title, subtitle, and disclaimer.
   • Preliminary pages: Add text blocks for commentary. (Advanced and IES only: Insert an AI-generated narrative summary to explain your financial performance).
   • Reports and charts: Insert standard reports or custom reports. Select Edit on any report to change its type or period. (Advanced and IES only: Insert visual chart widgets and KPI scorecards).
   • End notes: Include a breakdown of sub-accounts or enter custom page content.
4. Drag and drop elements (reports, charts, KPIs, text) to reorder them within your document.
5. Select Save as draft to keep your work in progress. Your report will be saved in the Drafts tab so you can return to it later.

Tip: Reports print most accurately in Google Chrome. Using other browsers may cause layout or formatting differences.

View management reports

QuickBooks Online provides automatic report compilations such as Company Overview, Sales Performance, and Expenses Performance.

1. Go to Reports and select Management reports (Take me there).
2. Choose which of the following report compilations you’d like to view:
   • Company Overview: Contains Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports.
   • Sales Performance: Contains Profit and Loss, A/R Ageing Detail, and Sales by Customer Summary reports.
   • Expenses Performance: Contains Profit and Loss, A/P Ageing Detail, and Expenses by Supplier Summary reports.
3. In the Report Period, select a time range or a custom date range.
4. Select Preview report to preview the PDF document. From the preview:
   • Select Print and follow the steps if you want to print a physical copy of the report.
   • Or, select Save as PDF and follow the steps to save the report.
   • Or, select the close icon X to close the report.
5. Or, select the dropdown next to Preview to perform one of the following actions:
   • Edit
   • Send
   • Export as PDF
   • Export as DOCX
   • Duplicate
   • Delete (Not available for default compilations provided by QuickBooks.)

Tip: Reports print most accurately in Google Chrome. Using other browsers may cause layout or formatting differences.

Add components and visuals to a report

Enhance your packages by adding standard reports, custom reports.

Add a Standard report

1. ​Go to Reports and select Standard reports (Take me there).
2. Find the report you want to add, select the more options icon, then select Add to Management reports.
3. Select either Create a new management report or Add to an existing management report.
4. Enter the name of the new management report, or select an existing management report.
5. Select Add.

Add a Custom report

Note: Custom reports are available for QuickBooks Online Advanced.

1. Go to Reports and select Custom reports (Take me there).
2. Find the report you want to add, select the dropdown in the Action column, then select Add to Management reports.
3. Select either Create a new management report or Add to an existing management report.
4. Enter the name of the new management report, or select an existing management report.
5. Select Add.

Add a Standard report

1. Go to Reports, then Standard reports.
2. Find the report you want to add and select more options (three vertical dots) or the Action column dropdown.
3. Select Add to Management reports.
4. Choose to create a new report or add to an existing one, then select Add.

Add a Custom report

(Note: Custom reports are available for QuickBooks Online Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite).

1. Go to Reports, then Custom reports.
2. Find the report you want to add, select the dropdown in the Action column, then select Add to Management reports.
3. Select either Create a new Management report or Add to an existing Management report.
4. Enter the name of the new Management report, or select an existing Management report.
5. Select Add.

Add chart widgets and KPIs

Include custom KPIs and multi-entity KPIs in your visual widgets. (Note: KPIs are available for QuickBooks Online Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite).

1. Within the report editor, select Add Chart.
2. Select from the list of available KPIs, which now includes your Custom KPIs.
3. For consolidated views, you can pull in multi-entity KPIs to create chart widgets.

Customise the report content

Within the report editor, you can:

• Add text blocks for commentary or executive summaries.
• Apply branding like logos, fonts, and colours to match your company style.
• Insert smart chips for KPIs and date ranges that auto-refresh with live data.
• Drag and drop elements (reports, charts, KPIs, text) into different sections.

QuickBooks applies smart formatting to your management reports to ensure they are professional and accurate.

Detailed Analysis: When working with A/P & A/R Summary reports, select specific ageing totals to see exactly which overdue items and invoices are included in that balance. You can also select the balance on accounts with $0 totals to see the underlying transactions and activity that make up that amount. 

• GAAP-Aligned Ordering: Reports like the General Ledger display accounts in proper order (Assets, Liabilities, Equity) instead of alphabetically.
• Smart chips: Insert smart chips for KPIs and date ranges. Select This period or Last period placeholders for dynamic date ranges that auto-refresh with live data.
• Flexible Display: Accounts with no activity or balances are hidden by default to provide a cleaner view. To change this, navigate to the More options section of the editor and uncheck Show only non-zero rows and columns.

Export and share reports

Once your report package looks exactly the way you want it, you can finalise it for your stakeholders.

1. Go to Reports, then select Management reports.
2. Locate your drafted report and select Publish. This moves the report to the Published tab.
3. Select the dropdown next to your published report to choose how you want to share it:
   • Export: Save the report as a PDF or DOCX file to your local device.
   • Share Link: Publish a secure link for executives. (Note: Viewers must have QuickBooks access and be signed in).
   • Email (IES only): Share reports via email as an attached PDF directly within the platform.
4. (Advanced and IES only) Select Create a schedule to automate delivery. You can choose to have QuickBooks send you an in-app reminder to review the report first, or you can set it to email your recipients automatically on a recurring schedule.

When your report is ready, you can export it as a PDF or DOCX file, or send it in an email to executives or clients.

Edit management reports

You can edit any of the management reports and save a copy to share. Here's an overview of what you can edit:

1. Go to Reports and select Management reports (Take me there).
2. Find the report you want to edit, select the dropdown in the Action column, then select Edit.

Template name

• You can change the template name or the report period from the ▼ dropdown on the screen that appears.
• Other options are in different sections you can select from the side panel.

Cover page

You can edit the following:

• Template: Select a prebuilt cover style for your cover page.
• Logo: Choose if you want to display your company logo.
• Cover title: Edit the title of the report up to 100 characters.
• Subtitle: Shows your company name.
• Report period: Shows the report end date.
• Prepared on: Shows the date on which the report was created.
• Prepared by: Enter the name of the person who prepared this report.
• Disclaimer: Shows "For management use only". Can be edited up to 90 characters.

Table of contents

You can edit the following:

• Hide or show the Table of Contents: Select or de-select the icon from the side panel if you want to hide or show a table of contents in this report.
• Page title: Edit the title of this page.

Preliminary pages

You can edit the following:

• Hide or show this page: Select or de-select the icon from the side panel if you want to hide or show this preliminary page in this report.
• Page title: Edit the title of this page.
• Page content: Enter and format paragraph text in this field.
• Add new page: Select this option to add another preliminary page to this report.

Reports and charts

You can edit the following:

• Hide or show this page: Select or de-select the icon from the side panel if you want to hide or show this page in this report.
• Select the edit icon on a report to change the Report type, Report title, Report period.
• Select the delete icon to delete a report.
• To reorder a report in this document, select the reorder icon and drag it to your desired order.
• Add : Select this option to add a new type of report to your document. You can select the Report type, Report title, and Report period. If you’re a QuickBooks Online Advanced user, you can select Chart to add visualised data to your management report. The charts you see here come from your custom reports.

End notes

You can edit the following:

• Hide or show this page: Select or de-select the icon from the side panel if you want to hide or show this page in this report.
• Include breakdown of sub-accounts: Creates a schedule that breaks down any sub-accounts for line items. You can view these when you preview the report.
• Page title: Enter a title for the end notes page.
• Page content: Enter and format paragraph text in this field.

More options

You can edit the following:

• Fields: Shows the {Company name} and {Report end date} variables. The company name variable can be changed here.
• Header: Enter page header text, or select one of the Fields variables.
• Footer: Enter page footer text, or select one of the Fields variables.
• Show only non-zero rows and columns: Select if you want to hide line items and columns containing no data.

3. When you're done, select Save and Close.