custom report

Hello there, markthompson.

While we don't have the option to combine the report of the current & prior year's monthly P&L and the current & prior year's YTD P&L, you'll want to export the reports and collate them in Excel. To run the first report, you can run the Profit and Loss Previous Year Comparison and show each column by month. By default, the report will compare previous and current years by month with the dollar change and percentage change. Let me show you how: 

1. Click the Reports menu.
2. Choose Company & Financial and select Profit & Loss Prev Year Comparison.
3. Set the date range from what month you want the data to pull up.
4. Under the Show Columns drop-down click Month.

For the second report, you can use the Profit & Loss YTD Comparison report and then show the columns by Year. Here's how: 

1. From Reports, choose Company & Financial and select Profit and Loss YTD Comparison. 
2. Click the Customize Report button.
3. Under the Display tab, select the date range, and under Display columns by, select Year.
4. Check Previous Year and the option you want to display and then Year-To-Date.
5. Click OK.

To export your reports, just click the Excel drop-down from the report's menu. You can check this link to know more about how to customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Keep me posted if you have other questions so I can help you with them. Take care and have a great day!

My questions are

1. In the past i believe I was using QB2007 and maybe ISW and was able to show the monthly current/prior yr

as well as the YTD current/prior yr on one report. Will I be able to do this in QSW??

2. In the past I dont remember having to export anything once the report was set up.

Under QSW do I have to export the new monthly amounts each month to excel??

Hi @markthompson,

I appreciate you for getting back to us here in the Community. Allow me to step in and help you run the report you need in QuickBooks Desktop.

The QuickBooks Statement Writer (GSW) was referred to as Intuit Statement Writer (ISW) in earlier versions. This add-on package still works the same for creating professional financial statements.

To answer your question, yes, you can show the monthly current/prior year and the YTD current/prior year in one report. Since you'll need to create the report using QSW, this will not be available in the drop-down list.

Also, you no longer need to export new amounts every month. You only need to open an existing report, then add the necessary statements or documents.

You can visit this article for more details about built-in reports, like how to personalize the filters and display information in QuickBooks: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Fill me in if you have additional questions about acquiring financial data in the company file. I'm always here to help. Take care always.

I am trying to pull a report for 2020-2023, Only looking at one month. IE, all February's for the 4 years.

When I adjust my settings as recommended I am shown results incorrectly.  How can I compare previous specific periods rather than just this and last year as built into the native QuickBooks? I am using Enterprise 23.0 for Desktop. 

I understand I can export the data to excel, but we all know that works horribly considering what we pay for this software, is there a way to do it natively?

Hi joshlapin,

I can see how much it would help if there's a report showing the comparison of all February data from 2020 to 2023. However, we're unable to do this in QB Desktop. I'm encouraging you to send feedback to our engineers, so they can consider adding this option in future updates.

1. Click the Help menu.
2. Choose Send Feedback Online and then Product Suggestion.
3. In the Product Area, select Reports.
4. Enter your suggestion in the Here's my suggestion box.
5. Click Send Feedback.

I also understand you don't want to export the February data of each year to Excel and combine them, but that's our option for now.

On the other hand, you can check our Help Articles if you want to see some references for QB Desktop;

Let me know if you have other questions about the reports.