How to create custom QuickBooks reports

QuickBooks has a broad library of reports that can be customized to varying degrees, mostly depending on what subscription plan you have. But sometimes you want to see a very specific cut of data, or you need reports to look a certain way for a client or management deliverable, and QuickBooks can't produce what you want natively.

In this guide, we'll explore what's possible in both of QuickBooks' native custom reporting options, how to use them, and what to do if they can't produce what you need.

Custom reporting features in QuickBooks Online

There are two different types of custom reports in QuickBooks Online, and it depends which subscription plan you have.

Customize and save a standard report (any QBO plan)

QuickBooks comes with 80+ standard reports built in: profit and loss, balance sheet, AR aging, sales by customer, transaction detail, and so on. You can customize these reports to change what they show. For example, you can change the date range, choose which columns to include, or filter by account.

It's important to note that "custom report" here refers to a variation of a pre-defined report structure. You're rearranging building blocks, not building a custom report from scratch. Keep this distinction in mind as you compare the other methods explained below.

Here's how to customize a standard report in QBO:

1. Go to Reports → Standard Reports and select the report you want to customize.
2. Configure the report settings at the top. For example, on the P&L you can configure the following:
   • Report period: Choose from pre-defined date ranges like this month, last year, last 12 months, etc.
   • From / To: Choose a custom date range between any start/end date
   • Accounting method: Choose between cash or accrual
   • Display columns by: Choose which columns to show in the report. This can be time periods (weeks, months, etc.) or other dimensions (customer, product/service, etc.)
   • Compare to: Select a comparison period to see them side by side. For example, if your report period is August 2026, you can compare to August 2025 by selecting "previous year"
3. Click Customize in the top right corner to add filters, change the number format, edit section titles, and make other visual changes.
4. Once your report is customized, click Save As and name the report, choose who to share it with, and add it to a report group.
5. Go to Reports → Custom Reports to view or edit the new report

Custom Report Builder (QBO Advanced)

If you have an Advanced subscription, you can build new custom reports from scratch.

Go to Reports → Custom reports → Create new report and select what type of data you want to include in the report (invoices, expenses, sales, etc.).

Configure the date range in the top left corner, then click Customize in the top right corner:

• Filters: Filter by one or multiple dimensions (customer, amount, date, etc.).
• Groups: Group rows by dimension, with group-level calculations for totals, average, and percentages. For example, if you have an invoice report, you can group by customer to see the total invoice amount for each customer.
• Columns: Add, remove, or reorder columns. You can add new columns in the More Columns tab.
• Pivot: Set fields as rows and columns and summarize the values, with row and column totals. For example, say you have an invoice report and want to see invoice amounts by customer over time. Set the rows to Customer, the columns to Date by month, and the values to Amount.
• Formatting: Configure number format (thousands, decimals, currency symbols), header and footer content, banded row colors, gridlines, and column colors.

Why people build custom QuickBooks reports in spreadsheets

QBO's Custom Report Builder works well for pivoting data into different views, but there's only so much customization you can do within QuickBooks directly. To build truly custom reports, you need a more flexible interface, and spreadsheets are a natural choice for most people.

Here are some specific cases where spreadsheets are a better alternative.

Combining data from different QuickBooks reports

In QuickBooks, you can only customize individual reports; you can't combine data across them. In spreadsheets, you can pull data from various QuickBooks reports and combine them into a single custom report.

For example, say you want to create a single custom report showing both AR and AP over the next 30 days to understand if you have more cash coming in or going out over that time period. Because that data comes from two different QuickBooks reports (AR Aging Summary and AP Aging Summary), you can't build that custom report in QuickBooks. In a spreadsheet, however, it's simple to combine that data into a custom report.

Customizing QuickBooks reports with analysis and commentary

Spreadsheets allow you to add custom metrics and commentary that explain the story behind the numbers, whereas QuickBooks mostly just shows the raw numbers.

For example, say you want to create a custom P&L variance report that explains what's actually causing month-over-month and year-over-year variances. In spreadsheets, you could create a custom report with columns comparing the current month, previous month, and previous year (with dollar and percentage variances), then add commentary highlighting key business drivers of those variances. By contrast, in QuickBooks you can only show the comparison with no context—what happened, not why it happened.

More formatting control than in QuickBooks

Management-facing reports need to look professional, and every company has different preferences. QuickBooks' formatting is mostly standardized, and customization is limited. You can rearrange columns, change number formatting, and change column colors (in QBO Advanced), but you're ultimately constrained by QuickBooks' reporting UI.

In spreadsheets, you can customize reports to look exactly how you want and include things like charts, dashboards, and summary pages.

Building forward-looking reports from historical QuickBooks data

Budgets and forecasts require formula-driven projections based on historical data, so they're almost always built in spreadsheets. Spreadsheets give you full control over the underlying forecast assumptions and let you incorporate data from other QuickBooks reports, like AP and AR data in a cash forecast.

How Runbook helps with custom QuickBooks reporting in spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are the most flexible place to build custom reports, but building and maintaining those reports can be time consuming. The initial report build is highly manual, and you need to pull new QuickBooks data into your spreadsheets every time you want to update a report.

Runbook solves both of those problems. It connects QuickBooks to Google Sheets and makes it easy to build custom spreadsheet reports. You describe the report you want in plain English, and Runbook's AI agent builds it in Google Sheets using your QuickBooks data. Everything is live-synced with QuickBooks, so you can easily refresh reports with new data.

Here are some common examples of what people ask Runbook to build:

• A P&L summary comparing the last two months, with written commentary explaining the largest month-over-month variances
• A cash dashboard showing open balances by account, pending receipts and disbursements, and the change from the prior week
• A P&L budget for next year, based on trends over the last 3 years of data, with editable growth assumptions
• A month-end GL review flagging duplicates, missing vendors, and potential misclassifications

Note that none of these reports can be made in QuickBooks. They all require some combination of custom metrics, combinations of data from different QuickBooks reports, written commentary, or formula-driven projections.

For firms: creating custom QuickBooks reports across clients

If you're an accounting firm or fractional CFO, you probably need to create custom QuickBooks reports across your entire client base.

Ideally, that process would look like this:

1. Create a custom QuickBooks report (or set of reports) for one client
2. Copy that report template across your other clients

Unfortunately, there's no way to do this in QuickBooks. Each custom report stays trapped inside the specific client file where it was built, so you need to rebuild custom reports for each client.

Runbook solves this problem. After you build a custom reporting package in Google Sheets, you can copy that workbook and switch it to a different client, and all copied reports are then live-synced with the new client's QuickBooks. This makes it easy to automate custom reports across all your clients.

A comparison

You should ask the following questions before deciding which custom reporting option is best for you:

1. Do your reports need to combine data from more than one QuickBooks report?
2. Do they need custom metrics that QuickBooks doesn't calculate, or commentary explaining what the numbers mean?
3. Do they need to look a specific way for a client, lender, or board?
4. Are they just backward-looking, or do they include projections?
5. Do you need to build custom QuickBooks reports across multiple clients?

With your answers in mind, here's how Runbook compares to QuickBooks' native custom reporting.

Runbook isn't limited by pre-defined data structures. Both of the customization methods in QuickBooks start from a defined structure: a report type, the columns it makes available, the ways it allows you to group them. You can only customize reports within that structure. Runbook understands the report you want and builds it in Google Sheets from your QuickBooks data, so it's unconstrained by QuickBooks' UI.

You have full control over report formatting. Because Runbook reports are built in Google Sheets, you can control exactly what they look like.

You don't need to be a spreadsheet expert. Building custom spreadsheet reports typically requires complex formulas and a fair amount of maintenance when those formulas break. Runbook writes and maintains those formulas for you.

Runbook automates custom reporting across all your QuickBooks clients. You build custom reports once, then copy them across all your clients. Every client's reports stay live-synced with their QuickBooks, so reports stay updated automatically.

If you'd like to learn more about custom reporting in Runbook, visit our website or schedule a call with the founders to discuss any specific use cases. You can start a 2-week free trial here.

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Keep reading

• How to use Runbook's AI agent — example prompts for building custom QuickBooks reports in Google Sheets
• How to connect QuickBooks to Google Sheets — four ways to get QBO data into Google Sheets