As you can imagine I look at a lot of reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I want to scan the various reports quickly and easily and have certain things just pop right out. I LOVE the Red report preference! It seems many people are not aware of the QuickBooks preference that allows you to configure how the reports display automatically.
This one tip is a must do in my opinion. J This change makes it so easy to scan your reports and have items pop out within seconds. Some balances showing in red will be correct; while others are probably something you need to review further. For instance if you know you haven’t prepaid your vendors, then your accounts payable should not be a negative number. If you’re looking at your Balance Sheet and your PayPal balance is showing a negative balance, you quickly know it’s something you need to investigate.
To change this preference you must be logged in as the Admin, and the file must be in single-user mode. I can hear a few people sighing right now, however this only needs to be done one time, and it’s really quick. Any preference set through the ‘Company Preference’ tab will be a global setting – affecting all users.
- Once you are in single user mode and logged in as Admin, go to Edit>Preference
- Scroll down to the Reports & Graphs section and select the Company Preferences tab
- Click on Format
- On the next screen, select the Fonts & Numbers tab
- Put a checkmark in the box beside ‘In Bright Red’
- Click OK to save this setting
Once the preference is saved negative numbers on ANY report will now show up in Red.
I typically select the ‘normal’ setting for the red font (what you see above); however you can also elect to have the parenthesis show if you prefer.
When I’m working on a client file and this preference hasn’t been set, it’s one of the first things that I do before I start working. This one change really helps my efficiency and accuracy.
Enjoy the red!
Rox 🙂