Monthly Report of Sales by Service Date Not Invoice Date

Hi there, @RossReg.

I'm glad you've reached out to us. Let me help guide you on how to pull up a report that will show the invoice service date. 

You can pull up the Sales by Customer detail report and customize it to add the service date. Let me walk you through the steps:

1. On the left tab menu, select Reports.
2. Type-in Sales by Customer Detail on the search tab. 
3. Click Customize.
4. Select Filter.
5. Click Transaction Type drop-down arrow, and choose Invoice. 
6. Select Run Report.
7. Click the Gear icon.
8. Click Show More.
9. On the Memo/Description options, make sure the Service Date is mark as checked. 

For additional reference, you can check this article on how to customize reports in QuickBooks Online. 

This will get you on the right track. Feel me in if you have additional questions about customizing reports. I'm always here to help you out. Have a good day ahead. 

I believe you are misunderstanding my question.  I have already done what you just suggested and that is not what I am looking for.

I want the date fields at the top of the reporting page to search on service date NOT invoice date.

When I follow the directions you posted and use custom dates of 1/1/19 - 1/31/19, the report returns sales with service dates at the end of December because it wasn't imput until the first week of January.  That is not what I want.

I need an accurate reporting of sales/service done in each month, not on the date an invoice was created.

Good day, @RossReg,

Let me guide you on how to group the sales report by Month and filter its date by Service date. This way, you're able to get the monthly report of your sales.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Open the Sales by Customer Detail report.
2. Click Customize.
3. Under the Rows/Columns section, select Month under the Group by drop-down menu.
4. Under the Filter section, select Service Date.
5. Click Run report to save the changes.

If you want the same settings of the customized report to be available for future use, you can memorize the report in QuickBooks. This way, you do not have to go through the customization process again.

Here's how:

1. Click Save customization at the top.
2. Enter a Customer report name.
3. If you want to share your customized report with other company users, select it from the Share with drop-down menu.
4. Click Save.
5. You can access it through the Custom Reports tab in the Reports page.

Please let me know how this goes by leaving a comment below. I'm always around here in the Intuit Community whenever you need clarifications with the solution above.

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@MaryLandT wrote:

Good day, @RossReg,

 

Let me guide you on how to group the sales report by Month and filter its date by Service date. This way, you're able to get the monthly report of your sales.

 

 

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astounding. Is this a robot?

That doesn't work either (see screen shot below).  I think the issue is that the date fields at the top of the reporting page are coded to search Invoice dates, which is why even when grouped by month, it's pulling sales/service data from the previous month.   If you don't configure the report  to show both Service Date and Invoice Date then you'd never realize what was going on.

So my original question remains - how to pull accurate reporting based on service date and NOT invoice date.  We should have the option to choose which kind of date the reports are searching on instead of being restricted to invoice creation dates only.

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@RossReg wrote:

 In my business, invoices are often created 1-2 weeks after the service was done which skews monthly reporting.

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To be technically accurate according to accounting principles, and especially if you keep the books on the accrual basis,  you should create the income when service is done.  Income is created with an invoice, so the invoice date s/be the service date

It's a medically related field and thus not uncommon that the invoice is created after the fact.  In fact, I can't even use QB to generate the invoice that needs to be sent because the billing as to be submitted on a specific government required form and QB is incapable to doing that.  In this instance, QB is used to track income and expenses only.  This is why I need to run reports based on service date instead of invoice date.  Although  it would also be helpful to run reports that show the lag time between service provided and invoice generation for quality purposes which is why I spoke about having the ability to choose which date the report searches on.

I can't just create an invoice based on service date as there could be up to 6 different service dates per invoice, so changing the process to make the service date match the invoice date won't work.  Creating a separate invoice for each service date just so I could track income by service date would be a nightmare to manage and reconcile against the paid invoices.

If QB isn't capable of providing that kind of flexibility with reporting than perhaps its time I search for another solution but It would be nice to get some confirmation of whether or not it's even possible. 

Thank you for joining this thread, RossReg.

Allow me to chime in and share some insights about customizing reports in QuickBooks Online.

Currently, the Date period range of the reports in QuickBooks is for the invoice date of your invoice transactions. The only workaround available is by customizing the report to add and show a column for its Service date. The steps and screenshots were provided by my peer at the top.

I'm still here to offer assistance if you have other report questions. Just drop a comment or mention my name. Have a wonderful day ahead!

So, I bit the bullet and called QBO Technical Support.  What I am asking for is not currently an available option in QBO, regardless of the subscription level purchased.  When I showed them the report that was pulling Dec data into the Jan report he was surprised because he was "totally sure" QB could do what I was requesting.  At least now I know it is a pointless endeavor and that I'll need to look into more flexible reporting outside of QBs.  My thanks to everyone who tried to help.  It was greatly appreciated.

@HoneyLynn_G 

I followed all of your instructions (Service Date has been active on invoices since the start of my business) and here is a screen shot of the results.  It still pulls data from previous months if the date the invoice was created within the dates put into the date fields at the top of the report screen.  

Tech support says it's because those dates are hard coded to look at invoice date and invoice date only.

Thanks for commenting back and mentioning my name, RossReg.

As per by our support, the date range field is by default for the invoice date. 

Feel free to visit the Community space again if you have other QuickBooks questions. We're always here to answer your inquiries. Wishing you and your business continued success!

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@HoneyLynn_G wrote:

 

Currently, the Date period range of the reports in QuickBooks is for the created date of your invoice transactions.

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Wrong again.  It's not the "created date". 

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@RossReg wrote:

I can't just create an invoice based on service date as there could be up to 6 different service dates per invoice, so changing the process to make the service date match the invoice date won't work.  Creating a separate invoice for each service date just so I could track income by service date would be a nightmare to manage and reconcile against the paid invoices.

 

 

 

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If you report taxes on the accrual basis, then the income is not being raised on the correct date, so I would be ready to explain this to an auditor.  If you report taxes on the cash basis it doesn't matter, as then the income is raised when an invoice is paid.   The Service Date field in QBO is not used for any reporting.

I have the same issue and it's important for me to be able to run a report on service date.

What I have done, is added the Quickbooks add in to Excel. Then I can pull info From QB - including service dates, and run the reports in excel instead of QB. For the $65 a month I pay to QB I am disappointed this isn't a built in feature, and surprised since seems standard for service based company.

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@haskenazi1 wrote:

I have the same issue and it's important for me to be able to run a report on service date.

 

 

 

 

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By definition income is raised upon delivery of service on the accrual basis.  So if you are on the accrual basis, and if you are using Items that are linked to an income account in invoices, and thus which create income when used, then you must date the invoice on the service date.  Which makes the service date redundant, because it will always be the same as the invoice date

We're cash basis for taxes so invoice date doesn't matter but we run business reports on accrual

We track two dates though for reporting.. 1) date job was booked = invoice date 

2 date of Job =service date  

That's why it's important to run a report off of service date that differs from invoice date. We've used due date in the past for the service date bc that's hard-coded in qbo and can run reports off of. That's prob the best way forward until they change ability to run report off of service date 

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@haskenazi1 wrote:

 

We track two dates though for reporting.. 1) date job was booked = invoice date 

2 date of Job =service date  

 

 

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The date date job was booked has no accounting significance,  whatsoever

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@Malcolm Ziman wrote:

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@haskenazi1 wrote:

 

We track two dates though for reporting.. 1) date job was booked = invoice date 

2 date of Job =service date  

 

 

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The date date job was booked has no accounting significance,  whatsoever

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I know it doesn't - I was explaining why it's still useful to have the ability to run a report on Invoice date and Service date. For my company, which is cash basis, your point about Invoice date=Service date doesn't apply. However, from a business reporting perspective, we like to know when the job was booked, in addition to when the job was performed. That's why we like to use Invoice Date and Service Date as 2 different dates.

I am in the same situation as Ross.

Example of why we should be able to sort by service date:

The 1st through the 7th my employees do a job for Customer A. Customer A gets billed on a monthly basis (the 28th). My employees also work for Customer A from the 8th to the 15th. And from the 16th to the 28th. 

Without being able to see billables for the service date of the 1st through the 7th I am unable to see if we are profitable for the work we completed during the 1st through the 7th compared to the cost of payroll for that week.

Thank you for sharing your side as well, ObviouslyConfused.

I see how a service-date-based sales report can help to determine your profitability. However, such an option is not available right now, but you can export the data to Excel. This way, you can filter out the services rendered in a particular week.

I know this report can help other users with a similar setup, too. Please join me in sending a suggestion to make our engineers aware of this. Simply send feedback from your QBO company by clicking on the Gear icon and choosing Feedback.

You can also check about customizing reports for your additional reference.

Please comment below if you have other concerns with reports or anything related to your concern. Take care!