Your company’s income may not be tied solely to sales, but they’re likely a major revenue source. QuickBooks sales reports keep you in the know.
Your sales are the lifeblood of your business. Whether you have an online storefront with a shopping cart, a retail location or an army of salespeople who are constantly hitting the pavement, you live and die by those numbers and the movement of the lines on those pretty charts.
So it’s critical that you always know whether those lines are moving up or down. QuickBooks accommodates that need by providing a series of sales reports. You can run them using the default settings, but you may want to learn how to use QuickBooks’ sophisticated customization tools. You could take a QuickBooks tutorial or training course to learn how to use these.
Summaries and Details
Three of QuickBooks’ sales reports come in two versions: Summary and Detail. They are:
Sales by Customer Summary. Displays total sales — from parts, services and other charge items that you’ve included on invoices or sales receipts — by both customer and job. Sales tax you’ve collected and income you’ve received from reimbursed expenses are not included.
Sales by Customer Detail. This is similar to the summary report, but it includes related transactions.
Sales by Item Summary. This report tells you about both your unit and dollar sales, subtotaled by type of item.
QuickBooks’ Sales by Item Summary report
Sales by Item Detail. Lists total sales for each product and service and the transactions that contributed to them.
Sales by Rep Summary. Includes the same types of income found in Sales by Customer, but sales are reported for each sales representative.
Sales by Rep Detail. This report will be useful if you pay commission to your salespeople. It displays all of the sales transactions that each sales representative closed.
Sales Orders and More
The remaining sales reports cover a lot of ground. They are:
Sales by Ship To Address. Just what it sounds like. This report provides totals for sales — invoices, credit memos and sales receipts — that were delivered to the same physical address.
Sales Graph. Shows sales income for a specified time period. The top of the report displays income from invoices, credit memos and sales receipts, while the graph at the bottom breaks down sales by item, customer or sales representative.
A QuickBooks Sales Graph
Pending Sales. Obviously, these are sales that have not yet been finalized.
Open Sales Order by Customer. Tells you what sales orders have been entered for each customer.
Open Sales Order by Item. Reports on all items that appear on open sales orders.
Standard QuickBooks reports were designed carefully so that you can get a good overview of your financial data in each. But do you know what other information would be meaningful in your reports? And do you know how to analyze them? Reports help you understand your past so you can make good business decisions for your future. QuickBooks training can help you with this.
