Custom Calculations -- Abacus or Excel?

Want ultimate flexibility with your QuickBooks data? Try exporting your reports, lists or registers to Microsoft® Excel! Sometimes, you need to recreate a formula or change the appearance of a report in ways that are just not available within QuickBooks. Transferring data gives you the ability to work with the information in ways that would simply be impossible in QuickBooks.

Changes you make in Excel do not affect your QuickBooks data, so you are free to customize a report or change the report data to run "what if" scenarios.

You don't even need to open Microsoft Excel! Simply run the desired QuickBooks report, click the Excel button and select whether to create a new worksheet in a new or existing workbook, OR update or replace a worksheet in an existing workbook. QuickBooks will automatically launch the Excel application for you.

What Exactly Is Exported?

• Data in the report, as it is displayed on screen.
• Formulas for subtotals, totals and other calculations.
• Row labels that describe the contents of each row.
• Headers and footers from the QuickBooks report.

The Advanced Button

In the Export Report to Excel window, click the Advanced button to control formatting and printing options, as well as activate Excel features.

For example, when you export a report, QuickBooks preserves the column spacing of the report by inserting empty columns in the Excel spreadsheet. To automatically remove the empty columns in Excel, clear the "Space between columns" checkbox in the Advanced Options window. Checking the Auto Outline box will enable you to expand and collapse sections of a report as needed. Or, checking the Auto Filtering box enables you to filter data within Microsoft Excel by choosing from a drop-down list at the top of each column. The drop-down list is to the right of each column title.

In Microsoft Excel, headers and footers may only appear when you print a spreadsheet (depending on your selection in the Advanced Options window). To preview the header and footer in Excel, choose Print Preview from the File menu. To modify a header or footer that is part of the Page Setup in Excel, choose Header and Footer from the Insert menu. This will display the Page Setup window and allow you to make changes.