Running reports

I was running into a situation today that is a bit similar. I'm used to seeing small differences, but my client was presenting some large ones when comparing the P&L by Job vs P&L with columns by customer/job.

First, my client realized that they had some revenue entered as deposits without client information. Those can be replaced with deposit lines that have a customer/job name. Also you can replace those lines with Sales Receipts. It's a swap of a sales receipt for a deposit line, and it requires focus to not screw up your reconciliations. This is especially important if you are using Sales Reports. (See next to last paragraph.)

One thing we noticed was that the P&L Standard report, when it was set to show results in columns by Customer/Job, provided an "unnamed" column. However, the P&L by Job report does not include a column for "no customer/job," so you can see how it would miss expenses and likely show higher profit because it is missing those expenses.

But the "magic" difference between the P&L by Job and the P&L Standard with columns by customer/job is only one filter change: Customize the P&L by Job report by going to the Filters tab, selecting the "Name" filter and changing the filter from "All Customer/Jobs" to "All Names." Now the P&L by Job produces the same results as the P&L Standard with columns by customer/job including an "unnamed" column.

THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING... You would think that the "unnamed" column would likely include overhead expenses as well as any expense lines not coded to a CUSTOMER/JOB. However, after some testing, I found that the only transactions that would appear in the "unnamed" column were (SURPRISE!!) transactions that did not have a VENDOR name. That would include things like bank fees and anything entered with a JE that had no vendor listed for an expense. As soon as you input a vendor, the transaction drops out of the "unnamed" column, EVEN if there is no customer/job for the transaction line. Hmm.

Additionally, the client saw that many expenses had not been coded to jobs. One way to see if expenses are coded to jobs is to drill down into the expense account total on the P&L. When the detail report comes up, customize the report by adding a column "Source Name." For transactions that have not been coded to a customer/job, the Name and Source Name will be the same... the vendor name. (You can also do this by looking for a customer/job name in the name field of the lines instead of a vendor, but it's probably easier to compare two columns.)

Comparing sales reports to accounting reports can also pose problems because sales reports include ONLY sales transactions, not deposits to revenue. See the second paragraph for the fix.

Of course, watch all report parameters to compare apples to apples... accrual vs. cash basis is just one culprit.

Good luck. I hope this was helpful.