How Do I Show a Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet for More than Two Years?

Lisa T recently submitted the following question:

"I'm trying to do a three-year balance sheet for my business. Please help! I'm stuck"

Lisa, you're in luck!

QuickBooks easily lets you show two years of balance sheet or profit and loss reports next to each other (hint - click the Modify Report button, then put a check mark in the "Previous Year" box), but there are a couple of tricks to get it to show more.

Here are the steps to see a multi-year balance sheet:

1. Click Reports > Company and Financial > Balance Sheet Standard
2. Change the Date range in the "Dates" box in the upper left hand corner of the report screen to "All" - this option is at the very top of the list so be sure to scroll all the way to the top.
3. Then move over to the Columns area of the report, just above the report header. Once there, choose "Year" from the drop down list.

Your Balance Sheet will refresh, and you now have a column for each year in a side-by-side format as shown below:

To do the same for a Profit and Loss or other similar report, follow the steps above and substitute the report you need.

NOTE: As you can see, this option shows all the years. If you don't need all of them, you will need to export this report to Excel and delete the unwanted columns. This tip works in pretty much all versions of QuickBooks.

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise. Download his free QuickBooks guides today to help you get more comfort and clarity in QuickBooks!