When it comes to the business landscape, understanding and managing the company’s financial data is imperative to ensure a clear picture of its monetary health. After all, managing finances to ensure profit is an unavoidable part of every business. In this regard, an income statement in QuickBooks or a profit and loss statement (P&L) is considered an imperative document highlighting a business’s overall financial performance over a specific period.
On the other hand, QuickBooks, a reliable accounting software, helps users with their income statement generation to simplify their overall fiscal reporting. Such software allows the users to generate different financial statements to keep track of their expenses and earnings; however, an income statement is one of the crucial documents that every user generates more habitually. Whether an entrepreneur or a multinational business owner, learning your business’s fiscal health is the key to success. This blog piece will emphasize generating income statement in QuickBooks and how to create them like a pro.
What is an Income statement in QuickBooks?
As the name suggests, an income statement is a kind of document that delivers a comprehensive breakdown of your business’s total earnings and overall performance. QuickBooks is a phenomenal tool that aims to streamline the process of generating an income statement, enabling companies to save their valuable time and resources simultaneously.
An income or profit loss statement (P&L) can be created for various time frames, including monthly, quarterly, and annually. The frequency of crafting such statements depends upon the nature of the business, as well as the needs and requirements of the investors, etc. In case you wish to check last month’s Profit and Loss Statement in QuickBooks, select the Date Range option.
It’s worth mentioning that income statement in QuickBooks also offers templates for Profit and Loss Statements that facilitate users to customize such tools as per their requirements. Such a QuickBooks template ensures that even financial beginners can generate a Profit and Loss Statement efficiently in QuickBooks within a few minutes.
The quick income statement template contains many excellent features, including the cost of goods sold (COGS), revenue, net income, etc. All such features can be utilized to thoroughly understand a company’s monetary health and make informed decisions.
How do you generate Income statement in QuickBooks?
Creating an Income statement in QuickBooks that fits your business needs is crucial for its growth. However, crafting income statements is not an easy task if you are a newbie, so consider reading the mentioned steps to comprehend the entire process:
Step-1 Make a QuickBooks Account
Begin with signing up for a QuickBooks account in those cases when you don’t have one. Select the ‘Sign Up’ button on the homepage to get started, and follow the on-screen instructions to create your account. Remember, if you don’t have a QuickBooks account, you won’t be able to generate an income statement.
Step-2 Search for the income statement in the QuickBooks Account
To navigate the income statement in QuickBooks account, consider learning more about the current version of your QuickBooks income statement account. This is because income statement locations vary from one version to another. So, we will be outlining all of the different versions along with their specific navigation steps that allow you to access your income statement in QuickBooks seamlessly:
- Finding income statements in Pro, Premier, and Enterprise
Some of the advanced versions of QuickBooks cater to different organizations, be they small or medium-sized businesses. The following are some of the steps that can help you to navigate your income statements easily.
On the QuickBooks desktop, click the Insights tab at the top of the home screen. Now, if you choose to display the QuickBooks profit and loss account, you will see it on your dashboard.
You can seamlessly customize your report utilizing dashboards, enabling you to view the information in graph format.
- Finding income statement in QuickBooks online accountant
If you are a QuickBooks online user and want to access your income statement, begin by clicking on the search bar, which is located in the right corner of the QuickBooks screen, and simply type the profit and loss account in the search bar.
Now, you must be able to see the search result on your screen from their select a profit and loss account and open it. Lastly, select a format, and QuickBooks will automatically generate a report in that format that you have chosen to work with.
- Finding income statement in QuickBooks Online
Begin by clicking on the left navigation bar’s report menu and selecting the profit and loss option from your QuickBooks online account. If you are still not able to navigate the profit and loss account, try to look for the search and type their profit and loss account from your report screen.
Now, you will see the search result on your screen from the select a profit and loss account and open it. Lastly, pick a format from which you want to work with.
Step-3 Choose the income statement report format
In QuickBooks, you will find a ton of report formats that you can choose to work with. However, figuring out which format suits you is imperative to ensure you have chosen the one that fits your business.
Step-4 Customise your Income statement account
Once you have chosen the format that fits your needs, the next step is to customize it. In this step, you can select or customize the column you want to use to create your reports. Besides choosing specific columns, you can also set your preferences, such as preferred accounting methods, the report’s date range, etc., and then save your changes as shown in the image.
Step- 5 Generate your Income statement into your QuickBooks Account
Once you are done customizing your QuickBooks account, you are all set to run your income statement in your QuickBooks accounts. To do so, click the “Run” button and finish setting up such an account in your QuickBooks accounts.
Remember that such a step of running the income statement account will vary from version to version. The following are some of the steps to run the report in different versions:
- Running profit and loss statement in QuickBooks desktop
If you are a user of QuickBooks desktop, then the best part is that the report will automatically be refreshed once you are done with the customizations. If the report isn’t refreshing, look for the refresh button on the top right side of the profit and loss statement. By doing so, your changes will refresh automatically and allow you to check what effect is done on your statement.
- Running profit and loss statement in QuickBooks Online
For QuickBooks online, click on the button to run the report located on the top right side of the screen. Now, you will see that the report is generated per the customizations you have performed.
Step- 6 Print, Email, or download your report:
Now that you have set up the profit and loss statement in QuickBooks. The ultimate step is to save it to your PC or laptop, print it /email it, or download it as your choice.
Wrap Up
An income statement or a profit and loss statement (P&L) is considered one of the imperative documents that highlight a business’s overall financial performance over a specific period of time. QuickBooks, a reliable accounting software, helps users generate income statements to simplify their general fiscal reporting. Crafting an income statement in QuickBooks can be a little challenging especially, for the newbie; however, following the steps mentioned above, you can easily create your income statement in QuickBooks. If you have any other QuickBooks query, you can connect with an expert or simply visit the official QuickBooks website to receive more in-depth services that can help you with your QuickBooks queries.
