Quickbooks Reports Desperation

November 1, 2007 7:12 AM

Quickbooks Report Desperation. All the data I want is in QB, but I can only seem to get it in separate reports. The ideal report would have the following fields: employee id, date, time, item.

I can get a payroll report showing employee id, date, and item, but I can't figure out how to display time on any Payroll report. I can get a time report showing employee and time, but I can't seem to display the date and id in any Time report. Please help before I lose my remaining QB marbles. I'm in QB 2006 on Windows, if that helps.

For example, the ideal report would show:
111, 10/31/2007, 7:30, costume construction

To show that employee Sue Smith, ID 111 spent seven and a half hours working on costume construction on Halloween.

The Payroll reports I get only show:
111, 10/31/2007, costume construction

And the Time reports I get only show:
Sue Smith, 7:30

(the date range for the Time report is set to "yesterday" and the report filter for item is set to "costume construction").

posted by pants to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Sometimes it's a function of how things are categorized. Try hitting "Modify Report" at the top of , say, the Time report. First look at the tab that should be open "Display" on the left side is a box called "Columns" that you can check mark to add to the report. If that doesn't cover it, click on the second tab "Filters," look in the "Choose Filter" box and click on them, as you do on the right a drop-down menu will appear that might offer the option you seek.

And if it does not offer what you seek, like I said, it may be a matter of making the Employee ID a category that DOES show up as a drop-down option.

Good luck.
posted by Kensational at 10:48 AM on November 1, 2007

Kensational, thanks for the suggestions. However... I've already gone kind of crazy trying to configure the report layouts.

In the Payroll report template, there is no column for "time", nor a filter for "time".

In the Jobs/Time report template, I can add a filter for "item" but the report is formatted in a way which makes exporting pretty useless:

,"Oct 1 - Oct 31, 07"
,
"Smith, Sue",
"costume construction","59:35"
"pumpkin carving","15:01"
"office decoration","40:45"
"Total Smith, Sue","115:21"

When what I'd like is a breakdown by day.

I know the information is in there somewhere... How to make it all show in the same place?
posted by pants at 11:28 AM on November 1, 2007

There are a few select reporting items that QB won't let you put on the same report. This may be one of them, but since I don't run payroll through QB, I can't answer your very specific question.

You seem pretty savvy with reports. Have you tried fiddling with available options under Reports>Custom Transaction Detail Report?

Depending on how much $$ you can commit to the project, QB's tech support can be very thorough, though time-comsuming. If you sign up for a plan, they'll generally be able to answer your question. And, if you sign up and they can't answer it or give you a solution, they'd probably refund your $$ (but of course get that commitment from them before paying).

One final option would be to output the data from each report to Excel, then find a way to get data onto matching rows...but that's a really big hassle compared to just the simple output from QB.

Good luck. Come back and tell us what the solution is!
posted by quinoa at 2:49 PM on November 1, 2007