 QuickBooks Online Comparative Balance Sheet Creation Get ready to start moving on up with QuickBooks Online We're going to be using the free QuickBooks Online Test Drive Searching in our online search engine for QuickBooks Online Test Drive Selecting the option that has Intuit.com and the URL Intuit being the owner of QuickBooks using the United States version of the software and verify Support accounting instruction by clicking the link below Giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website broken out by category Further broken out by course Each course then organized in a logical reasonable fashion Making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable So once again click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it Now that we're not a robot Scrolling in by holding down control up on the scroll wheel currently at 125% on the zoom in Cog dropdown noting that we're in the accounting view as opposed to the business view We'll try to toggle back and forth between the two views so you can get a look at both of them We're going to be duplicating some tabs up top like we do every time right click on the tabs duplicating it So that we can put reports in them right click in the duplicate a tab to duplicate again as the tab to the right is thinking We're going to go to the tab to the left reports at the bottom and then choose the balance sheet one of our faves And then I'm going to go to the tab to the right and go to the reports on the left and this time the income statement profit and loss Let's close the hamburger otherwise known as the hamburger and then range change I'm going to change from 010122 tab 123122 tab and then run it so it can be refreshed it Tab to the left closed a ham buggy and range change from 010122 tab 123122 tab run the report That's the set of process we do every time we'll now be constructing comparative reports that are going to be comparing one period to another period For example now when we get into comparative reports is a couple things we want to keep in mind Usually the comparative reports are going to be for external use or analysis type of usages So we might want to have in our mind the mindset that if we are a bookkeeper or working in the accounting department We're going to be thinking about putting our reports together in such a way that we can display them to our client or possibly our supervisor And therefore we might want to have some customized reports possibly grouping them on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis or a yearly basis And part of those group of reports might include comparative type reports that might differ depending on if we're providing them on the month end or on the quarter end and the year end Also note that as we do the comparative reports when you look at the report center A lot of the reports in the report center that are related to the balance sheet might be basically these kind of comparative reports So that should help you when you look at the reports in the report center to not kind of be overwhelmed when they have a comparative report Because it's really just a variant on the balance sheet If we're able to construct the variants on the balance sheet make our own comparative reports we have a whole lot more flexibility So also realize that when we're doing these comparative reports there's a bunch of different variations that we can do Because when you start to think about multiple periods on one balance sheet report You could think about having multiple years on one report, two periods being compared, three periods being compared You can be comparing the current month to the prior month, the current quarter to the prior quarter The current year to the prior year and so on and so forth year to date information versus the prior year to date information So there's a lot of different kind of comparative reports that you can do You need to be able to choose the ones you think would be best to represent your package of reports that you might be providing Say to a client and they again might differ if you're doing a month in reports versus quarter end reports and year end reports Now these are balance sheet reports and you have the same capacity for income statement reports But you want to also keep in mind with these comparative reports there could be differences in how the format will be constructed For a balance sheet which is as of a point in time and an income statement report which is a time frame Has a beginning and an end to it so we'll try to point those differences out when we go through the comparisons Okay let's think about the different ways we can do these comparative reports Now first there's two ways we can think about it We could think about having multiple periods as of a point in time for the balance sheet Meaning multiple months, more than two months possibly, multiple quarters displayed And that's one way we can think about it Another way we can think about it is just having two periods And if we have two periods then we can do a subtraction We can add another column which is the difference between the two periods and a percentage change column A horizontal analysis type of system So in the first of those if I have the range going for the year, an entire year And then I go to my drop down here I can then say the days in a year that would be quite long Because there's 365 so you would only do that if you had a short range that you were going to up top We could do the weeks which also would be quite long which you probably would only do If you're choosing like a one month of the date range up top The months which is much more common but still quite long if you're doing an entire year 12 months would be up there And quarters which is way more common if you were doing a year's date range up top Years which makes it possible for you to pick multiple years up top And then have it broken out with a comparative of years And then you could break out by customers and vendors which is a little bit more You know kind of unusual that you would break out your balance sheet by customers and vendors But that would be more applicable on other reports and as well as your products So let's do the most common which would be quarters here if I had a year's date range and run it So now you've got your quarters listed out top Now this is as of a point in time per quarter That will be a little bit different if I did like an income statement Let's go to the income statement just for comparison purposes We've got the year range up top If I was to compare the quarters then it's going to give me the activity per quarter and a total Because now it's looking at performance The revenue went up through each of these quarters and in the full year total you get the total at the end Balance sheet doesn't have the total because these are as of a point in time So that's just useful to remember And I can do that on a month by month comparison So if I did the months I could run the months And so there's that a lot of months, 12 months here of course so it's a longer report If you wanted to do a changing of the range here and you just had from 1201 to 1231 and you run it And then we change to days Then that would be more applicable to run it for days which isn't that common even in that scenario Or possibly weeks that you could run in that scenario And then just so you can see it you can run by customer And then there's your customers up top so that you can break it out in that format And then if you change the date range up top to go from multiple years Let's say this is 010120 to 123123 or something And I run that and then I change it to years You can have more than two years that you can basically run a report So the next way that you might run a report is to say hey look I only want to have two periods at a time Because if I have two periods at a time then I can subtract out the two periods and look at the difference between the two periods I can't do that if there's more than two periods So and I also might want to say hey look I don't want the oldest month first but possibly the most recent period or month or whatever first Because that's the most relevant month and that's a common way to format it So to do that we have to have a combination of the dates up top and then use these functions to be picking the prior period So we have the prior previous period and then the previous year So when I'm looking at the previous period if I look at the current month I can pick up the prior month to it Or the current quarter the prior quarter to it If I'm looking at the previous year and I'm looking at like say January of 2023 I can compare it to January of 2022 Those are kind of the distinctions so let's look at this one first So now I'm going to say I'm going to pick December 1231 222 Actually 12122 let's do a month 12122 to 1231 222 So now I've got the month let's change it to a total here back to the normal totals only So we've got our standard report and then this is for just one month instead of a year And then I'm going to select the dropdown and pick the previous period And sometimes when I hit run it doesn't quite run it so you got to go up and click it again make sure it runs And you've got now you've got two periods and it's got the the current period first Which is quite common in reporting because that's the most relevant data And then the prior period now it's just natural to say if I only have two periods I would like to look at the change of where I stood this where I stand now versus where I stood last month So I can hit the dropdown not that one this dropdown and say change dollar change And again if I just try to click over here it doesn't quite hit it sometimes I did that time So there it is so now I've got the dollar change so if I pull out the trustee calculator of course Because you know I only do calculations and my head doesn't even work anymore I can't even subtract like a Anyway if I take if I take this one here we've got the 2658.77-907.15 you've got the change Now the change is great but I can't really benchmark it to other businesses that are larger than me Which is what I'm trying to do oftentimes because I'm trying to be as big as them or get bigger than I am Benchmarking to bigger and better businesses possibly so I need the percent change then So I can hit the dropdown up top and say I want a percent change and run it run it So now you've got the percent change so now I've got I've got this dollar change which was right there And if I divide that by the prior period which is November then you've got the 907.15 divided by And it's a 193 increase you know in position if I move the decimal two places over So that makes sense so this percent change can be kind of confusing to first think about We're getting into kind of like ratio analysis and that kind of stuff But anytime you're measuring performance or where people stand and whatnot you have to do that You see it most commonly in jobs so if you get a job review they're going to have to use percentages oftentimes and so on And you can see that most commonly in professional sports jobs where you're trying to compare one player to another player You've got to use stats in order to do that and percentages come into play clearly So that's our standard comparative report comparing two periods So I can do that on a month by month comparison if I wanted to do it for a quarter for example Then I can just change my range to a quarter which would be the end of the last quarter of the year would be 10, 01, 2, 2 October, November, December and then so now it's still as of because it's as of the answer But in any case there's the two quarters there's the change and the difference So that's how you can do the previous period kind of things we did the quarter we did the month And then we can also then think well how can I compare to the prior year you might think well I could do this I could go from 01, 01, 2, 2 to 12, 31, 2, 2 and run it and then the previous period would be the prior year here But if I want to compare like January or like March of 2022 to the same month March 2021 Then I've got a different strategy so then I can hit the drop down and say okay let's go back to the baseline I'm going to take all this off run it and then bring us back to 12 So there we go and so now I want to say let's run it just for like March 03, 01, 2, 2 to 03, 31, 2, 2 But and I'd like to compare that to that month of the prior year 2021 So now instead of selecting the prior period which would compare it to February and we're going to compare it to the previous year So let's check that out and run it so now there's no data in March Let's try November 11, 01, 2, 2 to 11, 31, 2, 2 11, 32, 2 Ah hold on 11, 32, 2 Okay run it So now there's no data in our practice file for the prior year of November any of the prior year But you can see the comparison right now you've got 2022 for that month compared to the prior month And I could then add my dollar change and my percentage change and run it So run it and so there would be our changes And so if I wanted to compare the current quarter to the prior quarter I could say I want from 10, 01, 2, 2 to 12, 31, 2, 2 That's the current year and then comparing that to the prior year would be you know as of through December Because it's at the end of the quarter But you can see how that comparison by how those comparative reports will work Now so just to note that with these comparative reports now you've got a whole lot of comparisons right So even if you just if it was January now you can compare you know January to the prior year January for the first month And so that's one comparisons that you can do but if you're at the end of the of the like the year Then you might have different comparative reports you can compare now December to November of the current year You can compare December to December of the prior year you can compare the last quarter to the prior to last quarter You can compare you know the the last quarter to the last quarter of the prior year You can compare the current year to the prior year So so you can go overboard in the number of comparative type of reports that you want to do But just realize that you haven't a whole I mean you can almost do infinite comparative reports Especially if we start adding the percentage change because then you got comparative reports of two periods Versus reports that you can run that have three months in a quarter Or reports that you can run that have all months of the year or breaking out by quarter So it gets quite detailed in that sense as well So that's the general idea now if you were to provide this externally you probably want to change the title now Which you can do a couple different ways but I usually go to well we could just click on the brush up top You can change it here and you might want to call it something like comparative comparative balance sheet Something like that and then we can customize it the other way you can customize it because you might want to get rid of this date right there Because now you have multiple dates so you could customize it up top and we might go to the headers and footers for example And maybe remove the report period which would be a common thing to do And so that's a standard formatting that you might have I also tend to customize the formatting to to remove I usually make the the brackets around and then I remove I make the negative numbers red which could make them stand out more And then I usually remove the sense if it's for external reporting and on the footer you might I like to remove the date prepared time and report basis which I don't think adds a lot to the presentation So that could clean it up a little so it might look something like that And then if you wanted to save this type of report then you can save customization and it's a comparative balance sheet So you could add groups we'll talk about how to do that later but I'll just save it here And then if I go back on over to my first tab I'm going to refresh the first tab and then go down to the reports And go into the custom reports so there it is right there so now we can go into it quite easily And so these types of reports that are going to be the same for reporting purposes that you might give to a client So if you're going to go back into the month into the quarter into the year you can save here you can save the formatting here And then be able to open them easily you might even want to number them for example so that you can you can then have someone else possibly easily put together the reports that you want And then bundle them however you're going to bundle them to present them to your client and or to your supervisor So that's going to be the comparative reports there another kind of report that's common is going to be a vertical analysis type of report And so we'll talk more about that in a future presentation going back to the first tab if I change to the to the business view just to see where things are located in the business view I think we haven't been doing we went to the home tab and then we just went to the reports which are under the business overview And the reports and you've got your customized reports that I think that's really all the areas that we went to so that is that