Learn How to Create a “Z-Out Report” on QuickBooks Desktop in Minutes

Whether you use QuickBooks POS or QuickBooks Desktop, as a business owner, accurate daily record keeping and closing reports are an essential part of your success. If QuickBooks Desktop is your software of choice, REJOICE…you haven’t been cast into the fiery inferno of the “9th Circle of reporting spreadsheet Hades” where once believed you would have to take up residence come “closing time.” Despite the reality that Intuit has developed generalized language within QB Desktops reporting functions depending on what type of report you trying to create, your only dropdown options to choose from are often inaccurate or not detailed enough for your needs. Alas, there is a way to create a “Z-Out Report” in QuickBooks Desktop and I am here to show you a way through the convoluted depths (enter the parting of clouds, doves descending and the melodious sound of trumpets).

There are a baZILLION cliché sayings out there about thinking “outside of the box” (most of which attached to some inspiration MEME and are barely eye roll worthy). However, in this case, feel free to climb out of your Intuit QB Desktop workstation boxes with a “Jack and Rose wind in your hair” like gusto (minus the whole they’re on the Titanic thing).

Similar to the functions of QuickBooks POS, whether you have one source of transactional information or multiple, Intuits QB Desktop reporting capabilities on your workstation will work. You just need to be willing to brave the hurling flames of coding language generalization and “do not enter” flashing lights and sirens of the dropdown reporting categories that, at first common sense glance, seem to have nothing to do with what you are trying to accomplish and brave the proverbial drop down menu “rabbit hole” to these steps:

Step 1 – From the QuickBooks menu, select Lists.
Step 2 – Under the Customer & Vendor Profile List menu item, select the Payment Method List.
Step 3 – At the bottom of the Payment Method List, click the Reports drop-down arrow to open and select the QuickReport. As shown above. (Note the Report will be a QuickReport for whatever Payment Method was highlighted in the list at the time clicked Reports.) QuickBooks will generate a Payment Method report like the one shown below.
Step 4 – Select the option to Customize Report, and then under the Display Tab select the Date Range as ‘Today’.
Step 5 – From the Customize Report window, choose the Filters tab under the current filter the Payment Type needs to be changed to ‘All payment methods’.
Step 6 – With the Customize Report window still open, make an additional change on the Filters tab. Select ‘Transaction Type’ in the Filter scrolling window, then select ‘Sales Receipts’ as the Transaction Type option. (Note: This report is limited to cash-drawer transactions.)
Step 7 – Click ‘OK’ to save your customization.

I am going to assume that you don’t run your business by typewriter and candlelight otherwise you wouldn’t be here, so this report also takes credit card transactions into account for your daily reporting totals by balancing them against your final total, the same goes for cash and check by balancing them against you “Beginning of Day” amount. If for any reason your drawer doesn’t add up, then somewhere along the line, you did not record a ‘take from the till’ transaction. As always, if you have any questions regarding Intuit QuickBooks Desktop and/or any other Intuit QuickBooks products, we are here for you. Just click on the “Contact Us” link and any one of our knowledgeable associates is available to help answer any questions you may have.

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