11. Reporting

There are many reports available in QBO, but this section will focus on just a few of the main reports that you are likely to use: Statement of Activity, Statement of Financial Position, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Aging, Budget to Actuals, and a couple custom reports we’ll create for restricted fund tracking. We’ll first go over the navigation and some customization options that can apply to many different reports. Then we’ll review each report. Finally, I’ll show you one final entry related to reporting restricted fund balances.

Reports Navigation and Customization

The following customization options will apply to almost all the reports you can run in QBO.

Navigation: Left Menu > Reports

Standard reports – This will bring up all reports available in QBO. There are many reports here, so use the star next to the reports names on reports that you use often to bring them to the top of the page under Favorites.

Custom reports – This will bring up reports that you have customized and saved. When we create custom reports for restricted fund tracking, you will be able to access them here.

Report options

When you open a report, you will see the following menu of options at the top of the report screen.

Report Period – This is where you designate what dates will be included in the report. There are preset options in the dropdown, or you can choose a custom date range.
Accounting Method – This will automate to match the accounting method you chose during the system setup. You can change it here if you want to see the report under the other method.
Display Columns By – You can choose to have the report split into different columns. For example, if you choose Month in the dropdown, it will show each month during the reporting period you chose in its own column.
Compare to – You can compare this report to another period. The comparison period will show in another column.
Customize – Click this to open a new menu with various customization options. There are many options to customize your reports in this menu. We’ll look at the first three data options, which I find I use the most, but feel free to play with the other options to learn more about them!
- Filters – You can choose to exclude certain data from the report. For example, you can filter by Customer and choose a single customer to see only that customer’s activity for the selected period.
- Number format – These options are great for making a long list of numbers a little more readable. You can round to the nearest whole number and show negative numbers in brackets and red.
- Show non-zero or Active – If your reports are showing line items of $0.00, you can choose non-zero to filter those out and get a cleaner report.
Save As – If you have customized a report and would like to be able to run it in the future without going through the process of customizing it each time, then choose Save As. The saved report will now show up under the Custom Reports page.
Report option icons
- Refresh the report – this is useful if you’ve made changes in another window to any transactions within the reporting period. Click refresh to update the report to include those changes.
- Email, Print, or Export – Allows you to send the report outside of QBO.

Standard Reports

In QBO, navigate to Standard Reports and open the coinciding report in your system for a visual reference to the descriptions below.

Statement of Activity

The Statement of Activity is the same as a Profit and Loss report or Income Statement in a for-profit business. Different names, same information.

This report shows you what the revenue and expenses were during a time period you choose. The Statement of Activity first shows the amount of revenue recorded in each of the revenue accounts in the chart of accounts, followed by a line that adds up all of the revenue accounts to show the total amount of revenue received. It then shows the expenses by account followed by a line that adds them up to show the total expenses. Finally, the expenses are deducted from the revenue to show net revenue at the end of the period. So this report shows you how much revenue you brought in, how much expenses were, and the difference between the two so that you can see if you made more money than you spent or spent more money than you made during the time period you choose.

You can customize this report and get more information in a few different ways:

Statement of Activity by Class: Choose “Class” in the “Display Columns by” dropdown. This creates a column for each class so that you can see how much you are spending in admin vs fundraising vs program.
Statement of Activity by Month: Choose “Month” in the “Display Columns by” dropdown. This creates a column for each month during the period you chose so you can see how activity changes over each month.
Compare to prior period: Choose an option in the “Compare to” dropdown. A common one is YTD (Year to Date) so you can see the current month and the total for the year to date.

Statement of Financial Position

The Statement of Financial Position is the same as a Balance Sheet. The only difference is that nonprofits have Net Assets instead of Equity. This report shows your assets and liabilities at a specific point in time.

Assets are the things you own and include the cash in the bank account and property. It also includes things you are owed, so accounts receivable are part of assets.

Liabilities are what you owe to others. So loans and accounts payable are liabilities. If you’re a very small organization and using cash basis accounting, then you might not have any liabilities.

At the bottom of the report is your net assets. This is the total of your assets minus liabilities. For nonprofits, net assets are split into Restricted Net Assets and Unrestricted Net Assets. (The Restricted Net Assets account does not automatically update as you enter transactions the way the rest of the report does. This account gets updated manually. We’ll look at the adjusting entry near the end of this section.)

Like the Statement of activity, you can customize this report to show multiple columns and/or compare to prior periods. A common option for the Statement of Financial Position is to include a column comparing to the previous year.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Aging reports

The Accounts Payable Aging report shows the bills that you owe and how long you have owed them. Similarly, the Accounts Receivable Aging report shows your open invoices, so who owes you and how long they have owed you. These reports provide more detail and context about the A/P and A/R totals that you see on the statement of financial position for the same period. So if you’re reviewing the statement of financial position, and you’re wondering what makes up the total of the A/P balance, you can run the A/P aging report to see what is still left outstanding, to which vendor, and how old the bill is.

Budget to Actuals

If you add your budget to QBO, then you can run a Budget to Actuals report. This reports shows you how the activity for the month and year so far compares to your budget. QBO already has a great guide on how to enter your budget in the system here. Follow those instructions to create a profit and loss budget. Entering your budget by month will get you the most detailed reports. Once your budget is complete, you can run a budget to actuals report. The report will show the budget to actuals for each month with the last columns showing the totals for YTD.

Custom Restricted Reports

If you have restricted funds to track, then there are two additional reports you’ll want to create to keep track of the restricted activity and balances in QBO. We’ll create these by customizing a Statement of Activity report and then saving them for easy access later.

In the revenue and expense sections of the guide, we went over how to enter transactions related to restricted funds. By following those instructions as you entered transactions, you have done the prep work of identifying restricted activity. So now you can create these reports to view that information!

Restricted Balances Report

This report will show you the current balances of your restricted funds. Follow these steps to create this report:

Open the Statement of Activity report.
Display columns by Customer.
Set the report period beginning date at or before the oldest restricted fund received.
- Doing this allows you to see all of the activity for the life of each restricted fund in order to see the final balance. If you only have restricted funds received this year, you can set the date to “This year to last month.” Otherwise use a custom date range to capture all the relevant activity.
Click Customize.
Use the Filter option to show only the restricted customers you set up.
- Filter by: Customer
- Condition: equals
- Values: Choose all relevant restricted fund customers.
Save the report and update the name to Restricted Balances.

Restricted Activity by Month

You can use this report to view the activity for the month you’re working on. If you decide to update your net assets monthly, you’ll use this report to get the amount you’ll need for the adjusting journal entry. (More on that next!) This one is easy to create because you’ll just be doing a quick update on the balances report you just created.

Open the Restricted Balances report.
Change the report period to Last Month.
When saving, make sure to choose Save As and name it Restricted Activity – Monthly.

Adjusting Entry for Net Assets

During the initial setup of the QBO account, we created some Net Asset accounts to track restricted and unrestricted assets. The restricted net assets account has to be updated manually and can be done each month or each year, depending on your needs. If you don’t have a lot of restricted funds and only need the balance for 990 reporting at the end of the year, then you can do this as a yearly entry. If you work with a lot of restricted funds or need to provide financial statements to external users on a regular basis, then it may be useful to have this updated monthly so the Net Assets section of the Statement of Financial Position is kept up to date.

If you do this entry monthly, you will need the Restricted Activity – Monthly report you made in the previous section. For a yearly entry, use the same report but change the date range to “Last Year.”

When reviewing the report you will see either a negative or a positive balance at the bottom of the Total column. If there is a negative balance, it means that you spent more restricted funds than you brought in for the period. If there is a positive balance, it means you brought in more restricted funds than you spent.

To make the entry:

+New > Journal Entry
Date it for the end of the month you’re working on.
If the final amount on your restricted activity report is negative, it means you spent more restricted funds than you brought in and you will be decreasing the balance in Net Assets With Restrictions to account for those funds used. Debit Net Assets With Restrictions and Credit Net Assets Without Restrictions:

If the final amount on your activity report is positive, it means you brought in more restricted funds than you spent and you will be increasing the balance in Net Assets With Restrictions to account for the funds received. Do the opposite from before and Credit Net Assets with Restriction and Debit Net Assets Without Restrictions:

When you have completed the entry, the Net Assets With Restrictions account on the balance sheet should match the ending balance of the Restricted Balances report ending on the same date.

A note on the other accounts in the Net Assets section of the Statement of Financial Position: There is no direct way in QBO to roll up Net Revenue into the Net Assets Without Restrictions. So Net Assets Without Restrictions and Net Revenue should be considered together as the actual balance of Net Assets Without Restrictions.