Reports for transaction details including bill memo and account memo data fields

Hello there, @ES_ID. I appreciate all the details. I'll be sharing the steps to show both memos in a report.

The "Memo" label is identical to the check label, which is correct. The good news is that you can use QuickBooks to call up all of the characters written in the Memo box on a single report.

You'll want to adjust the Transaction Detail by Account report such that the Memo appears at the top and the memo detail appears at the bottom.

From there, you'll see the associated memos in vendor transactions.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Hover to Accountant & Taxes and then choose Transaction Detail by Account report.
3. Click Customize Report
4. Search Memo, then put a check on it.
5. Go to the Filters tab, then use the Search filter to type Name and choose Name.
6. *Search specific vendors/customers from the drop-down name list or select Multiple names to pick vendors/customers for filtering.
7. *Then use the Search filter again to search for the Transaction type, then choose Multiple transaction types from the list. Pick the Bill and other relevant transactions.
8. Click OK.

The report should show the two Memo you entered.

You may also click the Memorize button to store this adjustment, so you don't have to do it again in the future. Then run it from the Reports menu, under Memorized Reports. You can also read my colleague's article for further information to customize reports.

Leave a comment anytime if you have other concerns about reports. We're always here to help in the Community.

@ES_ID  RE: On the transaction detail reports, if there is any detail in the GL account line, it overrides any entry on the Bill memo line above. If no entry is on the GL account line, then the Bill memo data appears on the report. These are obviously different fields in QB, but the current reports do not distinguish between them as separate data fields. Is there a way to isolate the fields for reporting?

Nothing was attached to your post.

I've not been able to duplicate the case where a detail memo shows up on the bill 'source' AP row when it's empty (is that what you meant?), but the other case is 'normal'.

The rule is:

If there is a bill source memo and there is no memo on the detail row, the source memo will appear on the detail row.

As far as I know, there isn't an option when running reports within QuickBooks to avoid this behavior.

What is it you're trying to use the memo field for? Perhaps there is another way.

Its one of those situations where you have to track information in a way in which QB was not meant to work. I use both the bill memo for one code of general information, and then more specific information on the expense line memo field.  On a transaction detail report, if there is no entry on the expense line memo, then the report populates with the bill memo field.  But if there is information in BOTH fields, the report defaults to the expense line memo.  It doesn't seem you can pull both of those fields.  I already use classes for a different set of tracking so that is not an option.  I have not looked at the first response yet so see if maybe I missed something but QB seems to do this a lot, where you can use a field for information but you may never get to actually pull that field into a report.

I just looked at the first response.  It won't help my issue.  I've already been down that particular road. 

Thank you Ethel but this does not address my issue.  I need both fields available for reports.  This only allows for one.  See my response to the 2nd reply below.

Hi there, ES_ID.

I appreciate you for coming back to add further details about your concern. I'll be sharing additional information about customizing reports in QuickBooks Desktop. Beforehand, please know that QuickBooks is constantly changing and evolving based largely on the requests of users.  I'll ensure you can send feedback so our product developers can consider adding the feature in the next updates.

QuickBooks Desktop has the option to customize any report that you generate. You can filter the data, add or delete columns, add or remove information on the header/footer. However, adding bill memo and account memo data fields in one report is currently unavailable. With this, I encourage you to submit feedback. These requests and suggestions are forwarded to the Product Development Team for consideration in the future. To do that, you'll have to go to the Help icon and choose Send Feedback Online.

Lastly, you may refer to this article to view details on how you can memorize reports so the same settings of the customized report are available for future use: Create, access and modify memorized reports.

I'll be around to help if you have any other questions about running a report. Just let me know by leaving a comment below. Have a nice day ahead.

I've been using QB Desktop for over 25 years now and have run into similar issues on different occasions.  Very familiar with memorized custom reports but thank you for the comment.  This particular need is proving to be more important than the others in the past.  It would be nice if QB would setup custom reporting much like an Access database that would allow you to pull in any field from an database or link different data bases together like you can in Sage software.  Unfortunately QB is not built that way. I may have to move my client to a different software as they are growing quite rapidly and are in need of more extensive reporting.  I've used Enterprise in the past but not recently to see if this is an issue in that version as well.    Thanks again for everyone's help.  I was pretty sure there was no way to do this so having confirmation helps.  I will send in a feedback ticket

If you have the Enterprise Version, you can create a custom report through Advanced Reporting. This tool as been very useful to us when the fields we are looking for do not fit directly to the QB reports. I am also in need of the separation of multiple memo fields. This can be done through Advanced Reporting.