My Net Income on my balance sheet does not equal my Net Income on my P&L

Good day, @VLS Pilates. I'm here to provide some insights about the net income in your Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss report.

The previous period of P&L is the retained earnings of the current balance sheet. While the retained earnings this year is the P&L of last year. 

Also, the reports show different net income due to the following reasons: 

• Balance Sheet summarizes data at a specific point in time and Profit & Loss summarizes data just for a selected period.
• The dates or bases of the reports do not match.
• The Fiscal Year preference is not set properly.
• Possible data damage

To fix this, make sure that the parameters are the same. Let's start by verifying the Fiscal year. 

1. From the Company menu.
2. Select My Company.
3. Click the Pencil icon.
4. Under the Report Information tab, set the correct Fiscal Year.

Then open both reports for all dates. After, let's confirm by changing the report from a cash or accrual basis. If there's still a discrepancy, use this link to resolve possible data issues: Fix data damage on your QuickBooks Desktop company file.

Keep in touch if you have further concerns with reports in QuickBooks. I'll be happy to lend a helping hand. Have a nice day.

Hi, @VLS Pilates.

Hope you’re doing great. I wanted to see how everything is going about the net income concern you had the other day. Was it resolved? Do you need any additional help or clarification? If you do, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you at any time.

Looking forward to your reply. Have a pleasant day ahead!

I've ran into this issue and followed the instructions. There is no data damage or issues with the company file after running verify data and rebuild data. Both the Balance sheet Net income and the P&L statement show different totals. I'm at a loss as to why it's not matching. I can only get it to match if I run the P&L from the beginning of the year till the last day of the month and the balance sheet set at the last day of the month. I used to be able to run it the P&L from say March 1st to March 31st and the Balance sheet to March 31st and the net income would match. Now or does not. This seems to have started in Feb. 

Any ideas what to do now? 

Thanks for joining this thread, @Arlingtonctk. 

It's good to know that you've verified and rebuilt your data to fix the issue. Since the same thing happens, I recommend reaching out to our Support team. They have the necessary tools to access your account securely and further investigate the issue. They can also create an investigation ticket if need be.

Here's how to contact them:

1. Go to Help, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Select Contact Us.
3. Give a brief description of your issue, then select Continue.
4. Select to chat with us or Have us call you.
    

Please consider checking our available hours to ensure we address your concern timely.

I'm adding this article to learn how to personalize your reports: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Keep us posted on how it goes. The Community team is always here to assist if you have further questions when running reports in QuickBooks. Take care.

@Arlingtonctk 

"I'm at a loss as to why it's not matching. I can only get it to match if I run the P&L from the beginning of the year till the last day of the month and the balance sheet set at the last day of the month. I used to be able to run it the P&L from say March 1st to March 31st and the Balance sheet to March 31st and the net income would match."

The net income on your balance sheet should match the net income for your fiscal year YTD.  It should never match just a month unless that month is the first month of your fiscal year.  The way you describe it, it is working correctly now.

My profit doesn't match between those two reports and it never has. But that is not my concern. I'm concerned my profit is too high. I know for a fact that I've lost a few thousand each month at the beginning of the year. It's showing a profit. I can do journal entries and Enron accounting it down but that's not right. All banks and credit cards have been updated. I can't just add cost. Help? 

Thanks for joining the thread and sharing your concern, @JohnTxGlobal.

I'll lay down some possible reasons and solutions to fix the amounts on your financial reports in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

There may be instances where reports display varying net income due to possible reasons. Thus, it might be why your profit is too high.

These are:

• Balance Sheet summarizes data at a specific point in time, and Profit and Loss summarizes data just for the selected period.
• The dates or bases of the reports do not match, or the filters are incorrect.
• The Fiscal Year preference is not set properly.
• Possible data damage.

To resolve this issue, let's ensure that parameters are consistent, such as Dates, Basis, and Filters.

Otherwise, check the fiscal year. here's how:

1. Choose My Company from the Company menu.
2. Click the Pencil icon.
3. Under the Report Information tab, ensure the Fiscal Year is set correctly.

Alternatively, you can compare both reports for all dates. For further guidance on how to do so, check out this article: Net Income on the Balance Sheet report does not match the Net Income on the Profit and Loss report.

Also, have you encountered an error while adding a cost? This way, I can provide you an accurate resolution regarding this query.

If there is still a discrepancy in Net Income between the Balance Sheet and P&L reports, we can troubleshoot data damage issues.

For future use, you might want to save time using the same customized report by reading through this resource:  Create, access, and modify memorized reports.

Ping me a reply if you have any further questions about managing your business profit or reports in QBDT. I'll always be ready to assist you. Stay healthy and hydrated.